Shadowlights
by Rhelle
Summary: [RxB yaoi]Egypt arc Bakura is the son of Osiris, the God of Death, dedicated to the destruction of the Pharaoh. Ryou is the son of Isis, the Lady of Life, born to heal all people. And the consequences of their love will echo down the ages....
1. Prologue

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Dedicated to Mai Valentine, as she is known at Fanfiction.Net; Jess, as she is known to me.

Forget everything I've ever written. This is unlike any of it. 

It is a love story tinged with the supernatural, set against the decadence of ancient Egypt. A thief king born of a destroyed people descended from gods; and an orphan child raised in a sanctuary, a goddess's son. Two halves of a broken circle, across the face of time and tribulation, united by love.

Without further, adieu, I present to you….

Shadowlights.

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Prologue 

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On the currents of time, he drifted. In the darkness of his prison, his sanctuary, he slept. And in the darkness, he dreamed. Dreamed the destiny that was his past.

He woke, at the end, in the long night that his life had become. And an age gone woke with him.

The balance was shifting. Things were coming alive again that for three thousand years had slept the sleep of death.

Darkness and light flickered across the face of time - half-remembered things, half-lost. He reached out to them, to touch them…and found nothing.

Darkness and light - his past, his future.

Voices.

Bakura…Bakura….

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That voice…he knew that voice, had heard it before. He heard it still in his dreams.

He had loved the one whose voice it was. Once, and a thousand times before.

The two of them, one born of darkness, the other born of light, bound against all odds by love - a love whose consequences would echo down the ages. And it was this love, in the end, that would both damn and save them forever.

Voices on the wind. Voices speaking a dead language with lips fallen to dust. Voices urging him to remember, remember, remember the past, before it came again….

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To be continued….

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Review! *^^* It helps the chapters come faster.


	2. The Story of the Thief Town

So I finally got the first chapter out! ^^ Go me.

Much thanks to Mai Valentine, Lady Phedre, Meriah, and The Inquisitor for reviewing! ^^ 

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CHAPTER ONE

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The Story of the Thief Town

Kuru Eruna. That was the name it knew itself by, long before any other. Nestled in the shadows of the great cliffs, brought life by the river that ran it through. Kuru Eruna, the village at the edge of desolation.

None of the ones who came after knew from whence it had come, or its people. They were simply there, had always been there.

No true Children of the Nile, these, but the remnants of a vastly older nation. A simple people, yes, but ancient…and powerful beyond imagining.

At the deepest level of the human mind and body and soul, there is the ability to make all things reality, to see the unseen, to alter the very laws of the universe itself.

Most have lost this ability, or forgotten it ever existed.

But always there are those who remember. Always there are those who dip into this deepest well of the soul, and draw from its darkness terrible and wondrous things.

Of such were the descendants of Kuru Eruna.

And in such a way did they live, peacefully, simply, same as they had for centuries, not wholly in this world, or those beyond.

Until the others came.

The Pharaoh's race, a people of sword and spear, come from the cities to the north and the east, spreading out over the Valley of the Nile. They came to the land where Kuru Eruna was, and found it good. And, drunk with power and blind with their own greed, desired it for themselves. They bribed, then conquered, the people of Kuru Eruna.

No warriors, these village folk. But the free do not surrender their freedom easily, and they fought, the only way they knew - with the unseen, and the unimaginable.

Powerful though they may be, in their own right, mists and magics cannot stand against swords and spears. Not fully of this physical world, they cannot defeat the things that are.

Kuru Eruna fell.

And so the people were made slaves in the land they had held for centuries, conquered by a people their own had ruled, once, in an age forgotten.

Even so, their captors did not dare take them from this place, or build a city upon the ruins of Kuru Eruna. The people were bound to this land, and it bound to them.

The land was the body, the people the soul. The Pharaoh's race knew this.

Even the most reckless have their limit. Even the profane knew that they walked on hallowed ground.

But cruelty thwarted will only be cast anew in another bitter guise. If they could not break the souls of the people through separation, they would break them under the yoke of slavery. If they could not turn Kuru Eruna into a city of the living, they could turn it into a city of the dead.

They could force the people, by their own hand, to turn their ancient home and the cliffs that sheltered them into a necropolis and sacred burying ground for the ones who had destroyed them. And they did.

And so Kuru Eruna sank into darkness for many thousand years.

But slaves never forget freedom, even if freedom is only an old story told by the tiny hearth in the darkness of a slave shack. And they are forever seeking that freedom, forever reaching for it as a child reaches for the sun in the sky, bound and shackled by their fate though they are.

Because always there are those who will fight their fate to the point of damnation and beyond.

And so it was, that after countless centuries of imprisonment, a phoenix emerged from the ashes of Kuru Eruna.

She was the daughter of the slave chieftain (her father dead of work long before his time), beautiful and brilliant, true child of a race of dreamwalkers. But there was steel in her, too, forged in slavery upon the anvil of suffering, and a strength and reckless will that would be not only her salvation, but the salvation of an entire people.

A chieftain's daughter, she was a queen among the people of Kuru Eruna, and kings and queens are but servants of their people. In life and in death, they are given to the good of their nation.

And so when the overseer of the garrison at Kuru Eruna rode out to choose his tribute, and chose her, she knew what must be done.

When he went to plant himself between her legs, she took her dagger from its hidden sheath, and planted it in his temple to the hilt.

In the ensuing chaos, she was able to escape. She fled the crime, but not the consequences - and indeed, she never would. She disappeared into hiding, but her actions lived on the lips of every slave in Kuru Eruna.

She was the spark that kindled rebellion in the eyes of her people once more.

Even in hiding, she became the focus of that rebellion. Every exile, dissenter, and malcontent of Kuru Eruna gathered to her cause.

An army of the outcast; uprising of slaves.

All over Kuru Eruna, the slaves began to revolt.

She was the catalyst that finally drove them into action. She was the current that carried them along to that final goal.

And she returned to them, at the turn of the tide, in the final battle between the soldiers and the slaves, at the head of the cresting wave that broke over the garrison at Kuru Eruna and swept it away.

Many died in that terrible battle, and Kuru Eruna never fully recovered their loss. But many lived, also, and lived to see freedom.

And yet, freedom is its own terrible burden.

The garrison at Kuru Eruna had overseen and enforced their slavery, but at the same time it had provided for the people, given them their rations and all their material possessions, nurtured them even as it destroyed them. A master will care after his hounds even as he abuses them.

And now it was gone, now they were free. They had nothing but the weight of their own freedom.

You can't feed your children with freedom, can't provide for your family with liberation. There ambiguous ideals are all well and good, but survival rules.

As slaves, they knew no other trade but slavery. As freedmen, they would never return to it.

She, the deliverer-queen of Kuru Eruna, knew this. They must survive. And those who cannot make a living for themselves must steal it, so she led them where they feared to tread: along the path of thieves.

Thus they became the destroyers of what they had created, robbers of the tombs they themselves had built, in slavery a lifetime ago. Stealing riches from those beyond any need of riches, that the living might live off the dead.

Jackals of the tombs, eaters of darkness.

They took, or bartered for what they desired with the other scattered, distant villages, who endured them because they were the bearers of wealth as well as death, these people cloaked in the shadows from whence they came, these people of the fabled Kuru Eruna.

But the things of the Pharaoh and the Pharaoh's people they laid waste, destroying as they themselves had been destroyed, taking what had been taken from them, the debt they were owed - a debt of blood.

And so Kuru Eruna became known as the Thief Town, a legend to haunt the sleep of the Pharaoh's people.

A full legion, the Pharaoh raised against Kuru Eruna, sent across the wastes to decimate that isolated village. Some five hundred men, warriors born and bred.

Two came back alive. Battered and bloody and half mad with terror, they told their story.

The first night in the wilderness, they camped in a nameless desert valley. And in the deepest darkness, the warrior-queen and the entire force of Kuru Eruna appeared on the rise of the hill, bearing down on the hapless, sleeping army.

Half-conscious, disoriented, terrified, all their training lost in confusion, the legion crumbled in the onslaught, falling to the inexorable tide of the people of the Thief Town, until the desert itself ran with rivers of blood.

And when the dawn came, when the disk of Aten rose above the desert and Ra looked down at the valley - no Kuru Erunans. For there had never been any. Only the dead and dying of the Pharaoh's legion, torn to pieces by itself, brother against brother in the darkness.

Even the mighty Pharaoh of Khemet did not dare send another. Even the Pharaoh feared to stand against the queen of Kuru Eruna.

For queen was what she had become to them, truly; lady and war-leader, and patroness and protector alike.

Unto her and unto her world, in the sixth year of their liberation, there was born a son. And this son she named _Bakura_. 

No one knew who his father was, and perhaps it was better not to. But it didn't matter, really, for he was truly his mother's son. Strong, intelligent, fierce as a wild wolf-cub, ringleader of the children of Kuru Eruna, this little Prince of Thieves.

His mother was dark, as Egyptians are (the blood of the conquerors long since assimilated into the blood of their victims), of dusky skin and midnight hair, though her eyes were the color of the sky in water. His skin was as dark as his mother's, and his eyes the color of greying darkness, settling to brown as he grew. But his hair was a pristine, perfect white, paler than alabaster.

White. The color of death.

Even as a child, the hand of the divine was heavy upon him.

A halo of darkness surrounded him, the aura of another world. And the little spirits were drawn to him, danced in his footsteps; the little spirits of the earth that we can see only with our mind's eye, feel only with the senses of the soul.

But he saw them, he felt them. He spoke to them, and they answered.

By his fifth year, his mother began his training in arms; by his seventh, training in the shadow-arts through which her people lived. Because as she told him, and it seemed he knew even before he was told, he was born for the darkness.

Under the thief-queen's rule, Kuru Eruna thrived. A generation was growing up in the shadow of the cliffs, free of the Pharaoh's control.

But the walls that guard our world begin to slip, and we grow lax in our defense; victory passes in the minds of the victorious, but the defeated never forget.

And when another darkness threatened the borders of Khemet, when a foreign army sought to crush the Pharaoh's people even as they had crushed others, Pharaoh remembered the Thief Town. And saw in destruction the gateway to power.

The gods of battle demand their tribute, and this tribute can only be paid in blood. Victory comes at a price; for victory, a sacrifice is needed.

This sacrifice would be the life of an entire village.

And so the Pharaoh was decided; he would kill two birds with one stone, destroy one enemy by destroying another - he would slaughter all Kuru Eruna, and through their deaths open the world to a power so mighty that even the gods trembled before it.

Kuru Eruna slept on in the darkness, unknowing, waiting for a dawn that would never come.

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To be continued…

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- Khemet, if you don't already know, was the ancient Egyptian name for Egypt. I use the word 'Egyptian' sometimes because I don't think 'Khemetians' is a word. But if you know more about this than I do, email me and enlighten me.

- The line "to the point of damnation and beyond" is shamelessly stolen from _Kushiel's Dart_ by Jaqueline Carey, an excellent novel.

- I know Bakura's mother is a Mary Sue. I really don't care. I didn't even bother naming her, and she dies in the next chapter anyway XD

- I call them 'Bakura' and 'Ryou' in the fic for simplicity's sake. The names are explained later in the fic.

And REVIEW! Please! I only got four in the prologue ;; It was depressing.


	3. The Descent

Well, look at that! The second chapter of Shadowlights! Sorry for the delay - two months late .

This chappie right here is basically what _really_ happened the night Kuru Eruna was destroyed, what Bakura's reaction was, and how he survived. (No yaoi yet, there probably won't be any until the fifth chapter…eh heh…oh, look at that. My two readers have now run away .)

Well, regardless, thank you again, everyone who reviewed! And the whole two people who actually read Shadowlights.

Note: Quite a bit of violence in here. Because little eight-year-old Bakura is still a homicidal little bastard! And also some weirdness, because a descent into the Underworld is rather…odd.

Also, I refer to the Gods featured in here as Him (His dickie-wickie), and such, but this isn't meant to offend any Christians or anything. I don't mean to claim that Anubis is _the_ God, only _a _God. We're not going to go into Rhelle's fucked up religious beliefs here, but I suppose this will suffice.

Without further ado - The second chapter!

CHAPTER TWO

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The Descent

_They are coming._

A subtle awareness woke her, in the deep darkness before first light. Then she heard the things moving in the night, and knew that this brief age of grace had come to an end.

Shadows swept along the floor. Things flickered in the corners of her eyes. Things summoned by her life - and, yes, her death.

They watched her from the darkness. They were waiting for her. The time of reckoning was come.

She'd played a game with the gods, and for a long time she'd come out the victor. But no one can win forever. And we all must pay the price for our mistakes.

Sometimes you win a little, sometimes you lose a little.

And sometimes you lose all you have.

She'd played a game with the gods, and the stakes were her life and her very soul.

They were watching her. They were calling her, from this darkness that was not darkness, but the portal to another world.

They were waiting for her. They had waited long, and would not be denied their prize.

Her sight was growing dim in the darkness, her senses smothered. The shadows themselves were consuming her.

_Then so be it_, she thought as the shades twined around her. _But I have secured my final victory_.

"Bakura, Bakura," she whispered, shaking him. "Bakura, my son, wake."

He sat up beside her, rubbing his eyes. "Mother?" He blinked sleepily into the darkness. "Mother, I can hardly see you."

_No_, she thought. _But then, you couldn't. I will never be seen by the living again_.

"Listen," she said quietly to him. "We are under attack, and when I tell you, you will flee this house. Run. Run, and don't look back. Take shelter where you may. Wait, and I will send another to guide you."

"Mother?!" The panic and pain in his voice was agony. "What about _you_?! Where are you going?"

She felt a stab of grief in her own heart, also, of losing her son even as she was lost to the darkness. Where she was going, he could not follow.

"Hush." She pressed a finger to his lips. "If you have listened to nothing I ever said, listen to me now."

He swallowed his dread and nodded.

She let out a deep breath. And in the silence between the worlds, she gazed at her son for one last time.

Who would have known he was only eight years old? He seemed beyond age. Strong little body, solemn, dark little face under the scruffy thatch of his unnaturally pale hair. And yet it wasn't the strangeness of his hair that struck one so much as his eyes. Soft brown eyes…and yet there was such darkness in them that they seemed almost black, these eyes that looked on all things evenly, cool and calculating, without favor or fear, only the cold light of truth. These eyes that saw through all the illusion and subterfuge with which we surround ourselves, and scoured the very soul.

_He has his father's eyes_, she thought, and shivered.

And yet…he'd loved her, hadn't he, her little godling son? She'd loved him. She'd loved him enough to give her life so that he might have his.

She knew, whatever became of her, he would survive.

She kissed his brow in blessing, and he felt the tears on her cheeks. "Mother…?" His voice held its wordless question, but she did not reply.

She pressed something cold into the palm of his hand, and shouted "RUN!" Shoving him out into the night.

Alone, she closed her eyes, looked into the darkness of her own soul rather than the darkness that consumed her. With her last living breath, she called out to the dead and the thing they served; she called up from the emptiness a thing that was itself emptiness, the damned to save the innocent, and the Hound of Hell to guard her son through his descent.

Then the darkness fell over her, and she called no more.

She'd told him to run, and run he did. Even when he heard their house collapse and fall in upon itself, he didn't sop, but fled out from the darkness…and into a scene from the end of time.

Hellfires lit the air, rent with the screams of the doomed, and shadows danced with the dying and the dead. Kuru Eruna had fallen.

Bakura froze. Instinctively, he melted into the shadows between two houses and pressed himself against a wall. But his sharp dark eyes remained on the carnage, and began to pick apart the elements of this symphony of chaos.

Flaming arrows hissed through the night like demon birds, striking the low houses of Kuru Eruna. The houses were made of river mud mixed with plant compound, so they didn't burn - just smoldered and crumbled. They fell like a rain of embers upon their drowsing inhabitants, driving them outside - and into the blades of the waiting soldiers.

And yes, they were soldiers. Even from where he stood, he could see their uniformed kilts and head coverings, and recognized it as the regalia of the Pharaoh's Guard.

_Pharaoh_. His lips curled in a silent snarl. The name was like a curse to him, the hatred for the one who bore it bred into his very flesh and soul.

_So the Pharaoh has found us here. So he has sent his hounds to wipe out this den of jackals that plagues him_. Rage burned in his blood.

And yet…no, not right. A sense of wrongness rankled.

His mother had always taught him to watch, to analyze the situation. And so he did.

A small knot of Kuru Erunan men and women, knives and swords drawn, charged the advancing wall of the Pharaoh's Guard, who met them blade with blade. But the people of Kuru Eruna were near out of their wits with shock, and burned terribly from the arrows. And these were the Pharaoh's men, and the Pharaoh would have only the best.

The soldiers' swords twisted out from under the Kuru Erunans', and scored them across chests, legs, arms, severing tendons so that they could not hold a blade. Blood stained the darkness. One man's hand, severed from his body, landed near Bakura's hiding place.

The rebels fled.

A young girl was running from one of the Pharaoh's Guard. Not fast enough. The man struck her a terrible blow across the shoulder blades and back. She cried out and fell, but forced herself to her feet, and despite the river of red cascading down her body, fled on faster than she had before. The soldier only watched.

_A terrible blow_, Bakura mused, his thoughts cool though his hatred burned. _But not a killing one. He could have had her, if he wanted to._

The Pharaoh's force swept through Kuru Eruna like an insatiable tide, a wall of swords and spears. Everything that could run, ran before it.

_They are being driven_, Bakura realized, eyes widening. _They are being driven, to some dark or distant goal_.

Once, long ago, he had seen these same thieves stealing a farmer's sheep. They'd roused and driven them from their pen with spears and knives and swords, dogged their heels and chased them - chased them right to the sole figure that waited at the gate with butchering knife in hand. He caught them one by one as they tried to flee.

In the end, the gate was piled shoulder-deep with the soft white bodies of sheep, a slaughter no one mourned.

And Bakura knew he was only watching a repeat of this massacre.

His eyes narrowed, and reflected in them was the carnage they saw: his people - aunts, uncles, cousins, friends, companions - forced along, running from the devil they knew to the one they didn't - from the soldiers with their flashing swords, and into the darkness beyond the village lights. And the Gods only knew what horror waited there.

_They're rounding us up like sheep for the slaughter, driving us to our doom, _he thought. _They don't want us dead…they want us alive._

Why, for what purpose? He did not understand, did not think he could ever understand. He wasn't sure he wanted to.

Fury joined the horror in him. His eyes were slits, his teeth bared. His hands clenched into fists - the left closing around the thing it held.

He's forgotten about that, the object his mother had pressed to his palm before pushing him out into the night. He opened his hand and looked at it.

A knife.

No knife of flint or bronze or bone, like the ones he was used to. But a knife such as the gods themselves bear.

Average-sized, perhaps a little less than two hands' length, and unadorned. Simple, elegant, it fit perfectly into his palm.

But it was the blade that drew him in.

Leaf-shaped, and the edge so fine that his eye could hardly discern where it ended and the night began. And the metal of the blade…was like moonstone, shifting and shimmering and not of this world. But where moonstone was a soft silvery color, this was _black_, black as if darkness itself was trapped within.

Ghostly white shimmered along with the black, like the empty eyes of shades in endless shadows.

White. The color of death.

The voices of the lost were speaking through this thing, speaking without a sound.

A chill crept down his spine. He knew, instinctively, that a knife like this did not come from human hands.

Well and so, it was his now, and he would master it. His grip closed on the handle, and his eyes returned to the destruction. Fire glowed in his eyes as he watched the warriors of the Pharaoh driving his people into the darkness.

Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. They were as good as dead, and he with them.

Well, so be it. They would kill him, but he would die no coward.

A pack of soldiers were pursuing a little child - too little, really, to be able to run properly. One of the men raise his club for the strike, the look on his face like the hollow-eyed grin of a skull. Murder was an amusing pastime to these men, and savagery a practical joke.

They were passing just beyond the shadows in which Bakura hid. A fleeting window of opportunity in which to act.

Bakura acted.

Most angered animals - big cats, wild dogs, birds of prey, even most humans - give warning of their intentions before they strike. Bakura didn't.

Soundlessly, he flung himself from the shadows and onto the back of one of the soldiers. In one fluid motion, he locked his knees on the man's sides - as if he were riding a horse - hooked his arm around his neck, forcing his head back and exposing his throat, and with the shadow-knife in his other hand, cut it.

The soldier was dead and twitching on the ground before he had time to cry out, and Bakura was on one of his companions. Dumb with shock, they only stared.

They were slow to react, but he knew when they did, their vengeance would be terrible. For the moment, though, he had the edge, and he pressed it to the utmost of his ability.

He was small, yes, and they were full-grown men, but in this his weakness was also his advantage. He was at least as skilled as any one of them, and a smaller target is harder to hit, faster than these big, bumbling giants who struggled to fend him off.

Besides, he was born for this moment, trained for it since he could hold a weapon. The arts of killing were engraved on mind and flesh, and living soul.

And body, mind, soul, he was bathed in the blood of his enemies, a warrior's purification. For the first time in his short life, he knew the ultimate freedom that is death.

Then, abruptly, time stopped.

Or fell away, as may be more truly said. The fighting continued, the fires burned, and the screams rent the night, but he had passed away from all this, no more real to him than he was to it.

The soldiers he'd been attacking looked around dumbly for the fierce little bane that assailed them, but he was gone from their world. They, and all things of them, were like a dream in which he was the only reality.

He knew he had slipped into the shadow-land between the worlds. And he was being watched.

Slowly, he turned. And saw it looking at him, real as he was in this place where nothing was real.

Dark of fur, long, slim legs under a body built for speed, sitting alert and ever-vigilant as the Guardian of the Tombs. Head erect, ears pricked forward, sharp eyes intent on him over its slender canine muzzle.

_Jackal_, Bakura thought. _Dog of the Dead_.

It took him only a moment to realize just how true those words were.

It was massive, bigger than any true jackal ever born. Its pelt was flawless and silken black, but no light glinted off that beautiful fur. It seemed to draw in all light and turn it to darkness.

The creature was made of shadows, the shadows of another world.

Its eyes were set like twin golden moons in the darkness. And a man looked out at Bakura from their depths.

That gaze was still locked with Bakura's as the thing got to its feet. The words formed in the child's mind, clearly as if they were spoken.

_Your mother summoned me. Follow me now, if you want to live_.

The jackal wheeled and began to run. And Bakura followed, because he did not truly believe his mother would call this creature to lead him wrongly, and also because it doesn't do to flout the commands of anything immortal.

Together, they ran. Past Kuru Erunan and Pharaoh's Guard alike, hunter and hunted, the jackal and the child flew, no more than a vagrant breath of wind to them both.

The jackal ran beyond the darkness at the fire's edge, to the shadow of the great cliffs…and into the gaping black abyss of the ancient tombs.

Faced with such fathomless darkness, even Bakura, the fearless little Prince of Thieves, hesitated.

These were the old tombs, much, much older than the others cut from rock by the Kuru Erunan people in their centuries of slavery. These tombs dated back to the time when the Pharaoh's people first came down into the Valley of the Nile, and the great battle was fought. The ancient dead from that battle lay in these tombs.

The people never went here anymore. Even the boldest of a bold race of thieves did not dare trespass in these silent sleepers. "No good treasure," some said, "Not worth the trouble." "Bad luck," others insisted, which was probably closest to the truth. So the thieves left it be, children would not play there, and even the desert creatures avoided it. For they all knew, blind though they all too often were, that this was not a place where the living walked.

In those halls was death. This was not a place of silent peace - this was a place of hatred eternal.

They had died fighting each other, the Kuru Erunans and the Pharaoh's people who lay in this darkness. And they would fight in death 'till the end of time, rotted bodies locked in immortal combat. For the dead take with them into death all the hatred of their mortality, and here the killers were bound to those who killed them.

One in death if not in life. Doomed to the hell of their own hatred.

_Well_, Bakura thought; _If my path leads through this place, who am I to abandon it now? Besides_, he cast a glance at the massacre that was still taking place behind him. _Where better to hide from the living than in a place of the dead?_

He stepped forward, and vanished into the endless shadows.

So dark, dark all around. He couldn't see his hands in front of him, couldn't see his jackal guardian save for two flame-like eyes. He wouldn't have known there was a ground if he wasn't walking on it.

Only darkness, darkness all around. And the voices, whispering at the edge of hearing, too quiet to understand and too persistent to ignore. Things seemed to brush against him, the ghost of a sensation. Bakura kept walking.

Far he went. And all he saw was darkness.

Finally, Bakura stopped in his tracks and wheeled on the jackal beside him. "Hound, I have followed you without question, but I will follow no further until you tell me who - and what - you are, where we are going, and what has happened to my mother."

Those bright, sad eyes set in the shadow of a shadow regarded Bakura for a moment.

_You may call me Anu, for I am the servant of the Jackal God, and I bear His name as I bear His bond of servitude. But…_

Anu turned his face upward to where the sky should be, but there was only darkness.

_I had another name once, and another form that was my own. The being that I was is dead now, lost as my name was lost. Only I, as a shade, remain_.

Anu looked back at Bakura.

_You see, I was your mother's master when she lived as a slave, the man who tried to take her maidenhood. And because sometimes we become the sin we commit, and that is its own punishment, when she killed me so that her people might live, she took my soul as she took my life, and became the master of me._

As for her final fate -

Anu froze. He never did finish his sentence, for at that moment something stepped out of the darkened mists.

A powerful creature, a warrior-bodied creature. A ceremonial breastplate fanned out across His chest like the rays of the sun, and a kilt was wrapped around narrow male hips. But other than that, there was nothing to obscure the sheer power of the thing.

He bore no weapon, for He needed none to be dangerous. His legs were thick and strong as a Hellene athlete's; the muscles of His abdomen stood out from his body, and His arms were corded with the sinew of a powerful hunter. He had the gilded dark skin of the people in the lands of the sun. But there was no sun here.

And His head was that of a jackal, fur black as night, eyes yellow as the dying sun regarding the boy with a chill intensity.

_The Jackal God_, Bakura thought, though he dared not say it. The God who both prepared the dead for their journey and ended it, the First Embalmer and the Judge of the Dead, with the head of a jackal, the beast that devours the bodies of the dead.

But Bakura was not dead. He knew this. He had come to this place of death yet alive.

Anu's eyes were so wide that the whites showed around with fear. His ears flicked back against his head, and he went down on his belly in the age-old manner of the supplicant beast. _Master, please, have mercy; he is the son -_

The God's eyes moved to Anu, and His lips lifted. He made a strange gesture and a flash of light - and Anu was gone.

Bakura was alone.

"What have you done with him?!" Bakura demanded, his little shoulders squared, body set in a warrior's stance.

The cool eyes returned to him. The God's lips moved like a human's, and human words came from them.

"I did not kill him, if that's what you're thinking. One can't kill something that is already dead." He cocked His head from side to side, looking at Bakura like a carrion bird. "You, child, on the other hand…"

Despite himself, Bakura took a step back.

The Jackal God threw His head back and laughed out loud. But those cold eyes came back to Bakura. "You can go neither forwards nor back. For you have kept company among the dead, and you can never walk with the living again.

"Come for your judgment, child. They are waiting."

From the darkness like a vision or a nightmare, Bakura saw the Scales, balances of the good and evil of the universe. On one side sat the feather of Ma'at, the Feather of Truth…and on the other, he knew, would sit his own heart.

But his heart was yet beating in his breast.

Beyond the vision of the Scales, he saw the darkness move. A pair of eyes looked out at him. The monster without shape or form.

When he tried to pin it with his gaze, the thing seemed to flicker and change shape; part lion, part hippopotamus, part crocodile, and all horror. The monster that consumed monsters.

Ammit, the Devourer of the Damned.

A deep growl rose from the depths of the beast, a hunger not only of the body.

_Yes. A hundred thousand souls have you devoured, and yet still you hunger, _Bakura thought. _Well, my soul you shall not have_.

The boy turned back to the God, fierce brown eyes meeting cold dark ones, accusing the Accuser. "You have no right," Bakura said. "I am yet alive."

The God remained impassive. "Come for your judgment, child," He repeated. "Your life is over before it ever began."

He reached one clawed hand out towards the boy.

Rage made of Bakura's childish features a mask of death. His little body contorted, and his brown eyes took on a hue of red - the color of blood, the color of evil. A sudden wind blew viciously in this place of utter stillness.

And the Jackal God knew, too late, that He had roused a force even He could not defeat.

Bakura's voice was like tempest thunder, or the shifting of the depths as the earth breaks apart. "You will not judge me, for my time of judgment has not yet come. Death will not take me, for I **_AM_** death!"

The child raised his arms in the sign of summoning. And the little spirits, his companions since birth - the little spirits of both life and death - flocked to him and rose up, thousands upon thousands, like a great cloud against the shadows, darker than darkness, consuming and devouring the Jackal God.

Then, suddenly, the ground opened under Bakura's feet, and there was nothing above. He could feel the very agony as some great unknowable hand tore the fabric of creation, and he tumbled through the hole into the abyss.

Falling, falling, or perhaps flying. He could not tell the difference anymore.

He opened his mouth to scream, but it was torn from his throat before he could utter a sound. The solar wind howled in his ears, then even that was gone. For there could be no sound here, and no silence - only the emptiness that lies between the worlds.

Bakura closed his eyes, for he knew there was nothing to see.

Then, abruptly as it had begun, his strange odyssey ended. Bakura opened his eyes. And stared in horror at the sight before him.

The hall was darkness, its trappings shadows. The subjects of the court that lined the narrow way were shades, shifting and flickering, and jabbering in tongues long lost.

And He sat above them all, looking down at life and at death, creation and destruction alike, upon His high throne, like the king of all kings. Because that was what he was.

Bakura stood alone before the King of the Dead.

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To be continued…

Oooh! Cliffhanger! Another reason for my fans to hate me :D

Notes:

- Yeah, a lot of this isn't quite supposed to make sense. More will be explained in the next chapter.

- Somehow I doubt Bakura would indifferently watch the slaughter of Kuru Eruna. And I think that even as a child, he had unusual self-control and viciousness, not to mention extremely dangerous skills. So I had him kill a few people, and try to kill a God. Aww, what a cute kid!

- The whole "white the color of death" thing I got from another fanfic (one by Chevira Lowe, btw), so I don't know about the historical accurate-ness of it. But red, in Egypt, is seen as the color of evil. The God Set had red hair and eyes, and they saw him as marked by evil. Poor Set ;;

- I also think that Bakura had more training in weaponry and sorcery stuff than most people would believe. Kawaii little killer!

- Any more questions, ask in reviews.

…Anyway. Yeah. Please review. I don't care if it's signed or not. I don't care if it's only a few words. I just really want to know who's reading this, and what they think of it. Please? ;;


	4. The White Darkness

I had this up quicker than last time, huh? Only a month and a week. I would've had it up sooner, but…my dog Rags died. I'd had him since I was three. I was the only who held him when the vet had to euthanize him. So…any of you people who pray out there…pray for my puppy, okay?

And since no one really gives a rat's ass about my life, on with the fic! -;;

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CHAPTER THREE

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The White Darkness

We all know Him. The knowledge lurks in our body's long memory. We have all walked in His shadow in the moonlight, for He is the King of Dreams as well as Death. And besides, the Divine within us will recognize its own.

A twilight being with eyes like lamps, like a star in the darkness, He seemed to sit in His own light among the shadows. The King of All Shades, the King of Tuat, the Underworld. The God Ausar.

He was old. Gods, He was old. His name, and the legends the people attributed to Him were only humanized tales for a being as old as time, an attempt to fathom the unfathomable. As long as life had existed, so had He. For it is true that if there is life, there must also be death.

Eternal, but He seemed almost young to Bakura, with the face of a youth and the bearing of a king. For truly, 'King' was the closest human word for what He was.

But Bakura knew this was only one of His guises, a form for a formless thing. Should He have appeared as He truly was, the sheer magnificence would have destroyed the simple child that looked upon Him.

But He was not terrible, no. He seemed only ancient and eternal, and vaguely sad. For death is not always a terrible thing, but only a sorrow at the end of life.

He watched the boy stagger to his feet and stand facing Him, the Death King's eyes calm but without the utter coldness of the Jackal God's. His voice, too, was gentle and soft, with only an echo of the Gods' thunder. "Yes, it was I who bent the laws of the universe - at least for the moment - and brought you here. And with good reason. A little longer, and you would have killed Him, the Jackal God," the King of the Dead said quietly.

Bakura bared his teeth in what might have been a smile. "Good. I wanted to."

"Yes, but one can only guess at the consequences of killing an immortal thing. Bringing to death a thing of Death."

Bakura crossed his arms.

The King of the Dead cocked His head slightly to one side, truly intrigued now. "You're not afraid of much, are you?"

Bakura glared up at him, eyes fierce, arms still crossed in front of his chest, chin jutted forward, defiance written in every contour of his small body. "Nothing."

The God did not say anything in reply. But Gods do not always speak solely through words, and the Divine has a way of bringing out the truth in us.

The child's rage seemed to fall in upon itself. His shoulders slumped, his head bowed, and his eyes lowered to the ground before him, uncharacteristically demure. "Yes," he finally said softly. "I am afraid. I won't lie. But no one who gives into fear was ever made great." The boy's bright eyes glared up at the God, his head still low.

The Death King gave a low chuckle. "I beg to differ, child. But no matter. Your greatness will come with or without courage."

Still smiling slightly, He looked at Bakura and seemed to see someone else. "How like your mother you are," He murmured to Himself.

The child's head jerked upwards, and his downcast eyes flew open. "You knew my mother?"

The smile on the God's face faded. An expression of painfully human hurt flickered across His terrible immortal countenance. "Yes, I knew her. Before she was born, I knew her. She was marked by destiny always, in the darkness of her own mother's womb, and now in the endless tombs." The corners of His lips lifted slightly at the rhymed couplet.

He continued. "From childhood's hour I have known her. I came to her when she first entered the world, and she reached her arms out to me, smiling. The child of slaves who would be so much more."

The God raised His eyes to the high arch of darkness above them. "Sometimes the fire of the soul is too great for the vessel that contains it. Her body was only the shell of the immortal flame that would forge new life for her people."

His gaze returned to Bakura. "But yes, I knew her. I was her patron-god, her protector. I taught her the things that would save both her and her village - for truly, the two were one. I veiled her from the sight of her enemies, I armed her against those who would destroy her. And I fought with her in that battle against the Pharaoh's outpost. Don't think it was all mortal things that moved in the darkness beyond the fires' edge." He gave a dark half-smile to Bakura.

Then He looked back out into the darkness. "I loved her. I felt for her when I could feel for nothing else. I was her guardian, her companion, her friend. And so perhaps it is fitting that I should become the father of her only child."

Bakura felt a sudden chill inside, and his eyes widened. Realization rocked his soul. "But I am her only offspring."

The Death God's eyes rested on him, calm and cool. "I know."

Even Bakura had no reply to that.

The God went on. "You see, child, your mother gave her life to bring you into being. Everything has its price. Mortal flesh cannot mingle with immortal fire, and live. And the price of love with these powers is to be lost to them forever. The Gods do not set their mortal chosen free to live a few more doddering years."

Fire flashed in Bakura's eyes, and his little body tensed for battle, the shadow-knife in one hand. A great shadow like stormclouds began to gather around him. The child had brutally dispatched of those who intended harm to his mother's people. The Death God was under no illusions that Bakura would not try to destroy Him if he thought He had killed his mother. The child's voice was as cold as his eyes. "If you loved her, why did you kill her?"

The King of the Dead met Bakura's accusing glare evenly, calmly. "It was not I who destroyed her. Child, the Gods are only facets of a jewel. I was only the vessel for something more.

"When I lay with her, I was but a conduit for the Higher Divine, one of the great powers of creation. A mortal cannot touch something that makes the universe and still live. Nor can they die, but are taken by that very power itself. And she will never walk these halls with me, or dance the measure of life upon the earth ever again." The sorrow in His eyes was beyond human comprehension.

Bakura did not quite relax, but seemed to accept what the King of the Dead had said. "Now that I know what has become of my mother, might I know what has become of the people who were her heart and soul?"

"You do not seem to mourn her."

"I do not have the luxury to."

The King nodded and thought for a moment. "Your people…yes…your people. You wish to know their fate, do you not?"

"Yes," Bakura replied without thinking.

"And I will show you. But I must prepare you for what you are to see, and tell you where your fate lies in this. Besides, would you know the end of the story before ever you heard the beginning?"

Bakura met the eyes of Death fearlessly. "Tell me. Tell me all of it."

"And I will," the Death King said. "That you need not fear.

"The legends among all the peoples of the world speak in riddles about this place, this world from which the Gods came, this Heaven from which humanity fell…and they speak also of the Shining Ones from across the sea.

"This place was a jewel set in the heart of the sun-struck sea, where universes collided and were cast anew. This island was made of gold and silver, and the eternal green of nature's bounty - for indeed this place was where the human and the natural worlds came together.

"Though the people who lived there knew it as Poseid, the Sea God's Kingdom, to all future generations it became known as _Atlantis_.

"It was here that the Angels, the Gods of higher planes, first stumbled upon the Earth and saw Her beauty - and saw too the beauty of Her children. They came into the daughters of men - so say the myths of the Hebrews - and a new race was born from these unions. And this race was called humanity."

Here the Death King paused, and seemed to struggle for words. "How can I ever explain such a nation of enigmas to you? They walked in dreams and lived off fantasy, and they knew things that will never be known again. Hw can you ever comprehend the lives of people who knew nothing of the enslavement, war, poverty, strife, and thievery that you have grown up with?

"They were at once the most ancient and most advanced race this world has ever known. They had no laws, no kings or queens, for they needed none. They knew nothing of the hatred that drives one man to strike down another, and merits a law against it. And the Earth Herself was their Mother, their only Queen.

"The children of Heaven and Earth, the people of Atlantis lived by the laws of nature and their own souls, and by the will of the Gods that smiled down upon them.

"You must remember, child, that at this point in the world's history, human beings were only another kind of animal -"

"They still are," Bakura said. "Except that no animal has ever inflicted the kind of atrocities on another that humans do every day."

"No," the Death God replied. "Humans are neither animals nor Angels, but something caught in between, without the simple acceptance and peacefulness of the first, and without the Divine vision and comprehension of the second. Humans are tragic and terrible, weird and wondrous. We have never seen anything like them before, and probably we never will again. They are destined to fly higher and fall harder than any other creature that has ever been or will be.

"But never mind. This is another argument for another time. Back to my tale of the Atlantis legend.

"Human beings were only another kind of animal, but it was in Atlantis that they were touched by the Gods, and shown the sciences, arts, and magics of the higher worlds.

"Now, science is that which speaks of the body of the world, and art of its aesthetic mind…but magic is the heart and soul of all creation, and the life energy of the universe.

"It is said by some that the people of all cultures, no matter how advanced, can at their best but mimic the arts and sciences of Atlantis, simple and pure technologies beyond anything you have ever known. But magic was the gift of the people of Atlantis to all their future children, for it flows in our very veins.

"Ah, Atlantis. Such a place of beauty, of nature, and of human growth and progress, I have never seen before or since.

"But growth comes at a price, and progress leads to decay. And if Atlantis was the birthplace of human glory, then so too was she of human hatred, corruption, and cruelty.

"Not being animals, the people of Atlantis could not stop reaching for power. And not being Angels, they could not handle it, either.

"So it began to destroy them."

The King of the Dead stopped and looked away, as if the long-ago hate of these people troubled Him still. "The people learned greed, when they lusted for more and more of the beautiful things that were once freely given. They learned sorrow and despair, when they could not have these foolish material things. And they learned hatred, finally, towards a world that would not give them what they wanted.

"They railed against the Gods who would not give them these things they did not truly need. They hated, and divided themselves from the old Gods that had given rise to them, a schism whose consequences would echo down millennia. And they became their own Gods, Divine and utterly human.

"Being a new and a different thing, they called themselves superior, better, above all the creatures of this world. And they called these creatures that were once their brothers property, and the Earth Mother theirs to do with as they pleased.

"The beasts of forest and field they slaughtered at will; the human peoples of newborn nations they dominated, waging a war against the world. And the sacred forests they cut down for firewood to fuel their corrupted human society on into Armageddon.

"The crimes that humans commit against themselves mounted. A little bright light of a human heart sinned against another little light, a dark line from the wounded to the one that wounds, and to another tainted light, to another, to another, until the brilliant stars of human souls were obscured by a web of human darkness.

"The casualties grew, one upon another, human and animal, until all good in the world seemed beyond recall, and the very Earth like a dying phoenix needing a blaze to be renewed, a flood to be pure again.

"The Gods knew this. They looked down at the human below Them, these cruel, hate-filled destroyers, so far from the mortal-born Divine children They had loved that there seemed nothing left of them. And so the Gods were made to purge the earth of this darkness that consumed it - to destroy Their beloved children, lest those children destroy all life.

"The sky darkened, and a long night fell over the island. A rain began that would never end, and Atlantis was ravaged by violent storms both inside and outside the earth. The very elements themselves turned against the people. The roiling seas rose, and the earth, stricken from within, shook and shifted and sank into the sea from which it came. And Atlantis, in all her glory, disappeared into the deep blue abyss as if she had never been.

"But there were survivors. There are always, it seems, survivors -"

"And is this a triumph or a tragedy," Bakura asked. "That human beings can so defy and abuse the Earth and the Powers that created them, and live to tell of it?"

"Only you can answer your own question," the Death King replied. "The fable must find its own truth. Let me continue on.

"There were survivors. The Gods whispered in the ears of some, those in whom the Good still lived, a whisper of the storm gales that would come to destroy them all.

"They fled the dying isle in their little hollow boats, cast out into the eternal, ever-changing ocean, entrusted their fates to this great entity that gave them life and could just as easily give them death.

But they lived, all of them, so far as I know. The Gods hold Their chosen in the palm of Their hands. Far the people paddled in their little boats, far and long, and they set down all over the world.

"They landed in Alba, Eire, Gaul, Etrusca; in Phoenicia, spreading out into Sumeria, Mesopotamia, Canaan; in the African countries far to the south, jungles and deserts alike; In Ch'in, India, the lands of the Silk Road, and the little islands of Japan; in Hy-Breasil, and countries on the other side of the world that have no names.

"And a group of them landed in the Valley of the Nile, and saw the goodness there. They founded a little settlement there, on a branch of the Great River in the shadow of the cliffs, and named it Kuru Eruna.

"All over the world, the Atlantean refugees set down their anchors and came together in peace with the peoples already living there, fusing their bloodlines and their fates.

"So you see, child, there is not any person on any nation of the earth in whom their blood does not flow. It is in you, in your cousins and relatives and friends, your brothers on the other side of the world whom you will never know, and even in the Pharaoh and all his people.

"You are all children of the glory, grandeur, and ultimate destruction of Atlantis.

"And your common ancestors, fleeing the ruin of all they had ever known, faced with the task of ensuring the future, refused to forget their past. Through myth and riddled tales, they passed down to their children and their children's children the legend of Atlantis, that they might know the majesty and power of that lost world - and never forget the price at which such power came."

Bakura spoke, and his voice was so cold that even the King of the Dead felt chilled. "No. People forget. Bright revelations pass into darkness. Legends become nothing more. But human greed and human hatred are immortal. We might have to do it all again someday."

The Death King smiled a little, and there was no humor in it. "Child, it is not a question of 'if,' but of 'when.'

"But let us not dwell on the future and the doomed unborn. Let us focus on the present and the living, and the past that makes us all.

"All that I have told you about, child, all this lost civilization - all the horror, wonder, suffering, beauty, and enduring majesty - lives in you, Bakura. Your people are descended in a direct line from the survivors of Atlantis. And know, child, that it is not your Divine half which will bring you to greatness, but this - your human side.

"You are a true child of your people, and of the name your mother gave you."

Bakura cocked an eyebrow and lifted the corner of his lips sarcastically. "My name?"

"Yes," The King of the Dead replied in a tone that brooked no rebelliousness. "For our name is what we are.

"And your name is, truly, a word of power. One can hear it even in the language of the common day: _Bak-u-Ra_. 'Service of Ra.'" The Death King laughed softly, and even the sweeping blackness seemed to echo that laughter. "The Pharaoh of the Gods Himself owes homage to you, little dark child.

"But few now know what your name truly means, in the language of a land that is only the legend of a legend.

"Its truth lies in magic. Magic is at once a barrier to reality and reality itself, the natural and the supernatural, yin and yang, light and darkness. It is in this opposition and this duality that its greatest power lies, for it is all and nothing at the same time.

"Your name is a testament to this, a word of power. The fertile void, the White Darkness. For that is a direct translation of your name from the language that the Atlantean people spoke, ten thousand years ago.

"Bakura. The White Darkness.

"The White Darkness. A paradox, but then, the universe itself is a paradox; creation in the face of nothingness, Life before the Abyss.

"Magic is, as I said, the soul of the universe. And magic at its core is the White Darkness, the play of shadow and light, life and death, across the face of eternity.

"You see, child, light and darkness, magic and time, the wisdom of a lost people, and the very truth of the universe itself - all this lies in the name you bear.

"And this is only the beginning.

"For it speaks also of another meaning that no one knows - another truth of your birth, your final fate, and your own indomitable soul.

"Child, hand me the weapon you hold."

Bakura blinked and looked down. Half to his surprise, he saw that he still held the knife with the shadows in its blade. He proffered it, somewhat warily.

The Death King descended His throne in a fluid, graceful motion, like a sweep of wind through the fields. He stood before the boy, face to face with Bakura now. He took the knife, and looked long at it.

"A knife is a symbol of power, Bakura, and power is devoted to neither good nor evil.

"And this knife…this knife was old long before Atlantis sunk into the deep blue sea. In ways you cannot begin to imagine, it was fashioned from the four Elements that are components of everything.

"The body of Earth is the steel of the blade, forged in the raging Fire, cooled by the deep Water, tempered in the everlasting Air…and blessed, finally, by the two great powers of Light and Darkness that lie at the heart of everything."

His luminous eyes turned back to the boy. "You too, Bakura, are a being of power, given neither to bad nor good - but something infinitely more ancient than both.

Your people may claim descent from Gods, but you are the child of something older than the oldest God, something that They are only a part of; a component of all the Elements, and of all creation.

"You are Darkness' child, Bakura."

Nothing in all the boy's life had prepared him for this. As if from a distance, he heard himself ask, "Am I then doomed to evil?"

"No," the Death God said in return. "Good and evil are a human construct. Light and darkness are a part of everything, and you are the avatar of Darkness. But they are power, and you are power, and you must choose well the way in which you use it.

"Child, come here, and I will baptize you into this world, in the only rightful way - through blood, through that river within us that is life, and its loss ultimate death.

"Come here, and I will initiate you into the world of the living and the dead. Death may set its mark upon you, and you will bear this favor of the dead upon your living flesh forever. The scars a reminder of your power, and the blood a reminder that always, power comes with a price.

"Come, child."

Bakura did not even hesitate. His bright dark eyes fixed on the God, he stepped forward fearlessly.

The Death King lowered the knife to that little upturned face, and His other hand cupped Bakura's chin to hold him steady. Bakura shivered; the God's hand held within it the cold of the grave.

Delicately as He could, the God drew the knife across Bakura's left cheek; two small lines written in blood, parallel to the Earth, parallel to each other. "One for darkness, one for light," the King of the Dead whispered like a dream. "Forever divided, forever with each other. Because always, one is the other."

Then He cut another line, only one, vertically against the first two. He spoke again, and something changed in His voice. "And the other that stands in the shadows of them both, and like the shadows it stalks them always, seeking as ever it has to consume them. Like the shadows, it will never be dispelled or driven out…and like the shadows, it will never win."

The God's eyes bored into Bakura's. "And know you, little Bakura, that this is not just a rite that I speak, but a prophecy."

The Death King looked down at the knife in His hand. "It knows you now. Your blood has marked it, and it is a part of you. Blood is life, and blood bound to blood is soul bound to soul upon the pact of the knife. Indeed, this knife will bind to your spirit the spirits of those whom you kill with it.

"This blade is yours now, and yours alone. Call it, and it will come." The God lifted it up, and opened His hand. And it was gone.

He turned back to face Bakura. "After all you have seen, after all that I have shown you about the true nature of humanity and yourself, do you still wish to see what has become of your people? Far have you come along this path, farther than any before you, but I warn you now, you have come to a crossroads, and a simple yes or no will determine the course of your entire life.

"So, child, what will it be?"

Bakura did not even have to think. "Yes, I will see them. I have no other choice."

The Death King nodded solemnly. "Very well."

Raising His arms in the gesture of summoning, the God called out over the gathering wind, "The behold: the fate of the people of Kuru Eruna."

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To be continued…

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Notes:

- 'Ausar' I the original Ancient Egypt name for Osiris, the Lord of the Underworld

- 'Tuat,' as some of you may know, is the Ancient Egyptian name for the Underworld

- And it's true what I said; almost all the world's mythological traditions have some place or person that can be taken as Atlantis or Atlantean. There's a very interesting book on this subject, "The Fingerprints of the Gods," I believe it's called. I spoke of this Higher Race as Angels, but that's used loosely, more like Gods and Goddesses than actual Judeo-Christian Angels.

- Poseid was, as far as I know, supposedly what the Atlanteans themselves called their country. 'Atlantis' is a Greek word

- If you see some kind of parallel between what happened to the Atlanteans (the destruction of resources, animals, people, and finally themselves), and what's happening to our society today, that's no coincidence. I put that in there on purpose

- When listing the names for the ancient place the Antlanteans fled to, I used the ancient names when I knew them, and the modern ones when I didn't. I'm too lazy to explain all them and the countries they pertain to out for you all xX My summer job takes a lot out of me

- 'Service of Ra' is one possible translation of Bakura's name in Ancient Egyptian. 'Bak' is service or labor, usually the kind owed to a lord or superior. 'Ra' is, of course, the Sun God Ra. Or maybe just 'sun.' I don't know. My Ancient Egyptian is still fairly basic

- I had the name 'Bakura' mean The White Darkness not just because that made a really great turning point for the story, but also because there's a modern Arab name, Bararukah, that means 'white one.' And meanings change a little, pronunciation alters a little more and a little more over the years, so… (thanks to Valie for telling me about this! )

- So the little rite thingy is my version of how Thief King Bakura got those scars on the side of his face. I think they make him sexier :D

- The little "one is the other" thing about darkness and light is a spoiler for the later Ryou and Bakura romance

And last of all…

REVIEW! I don't work for money, but I do work for reviews. Please? Reviews for the poor? ;-; :::standing out with a sign, "Will Work for Reviews":::


	5. The Creation of Destruction

Where the hell did my summer go? It seems like it just started, and now it's all gone ;-; Thief King Bakura stole it, didn't he, the bastard?! I'LL GET HIM FOR THIS!!

…:::ahem::: Anyway. Enjoy the chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR

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The Creation of Destruction

Bakura could remember nothing of being born, but he was sure this was how it must feel. Torn from the very fabric of place and time, pushed and pulled, forced through the darkness and the narrow gate.

He landed on his hands and knees in the night of another world - his own.

Anu was beside him, sitting erect, head high, in the perpetually alert way of the guardian beast. The boy looked at the jackal in surprise, and the jackal looked at the boy in solemnity and vague sorrow. Then Anu turned his head forward again, and Bakura followed the line of his gaze.

Before them, here beyond the village lights of Kuru Eruna, a circle of torches was burning, light in this place where no other light shone. And in this dark clearing lit by fires like fallen stars, human life and human death swarmed.

Priests in their black robes flitted about like carrion birds; soldiers marshaled the perimeter, torchlight glinting off military-issue weapons.

And in the center of the great ring of torches, a massive basin of liquid gold shimmered above a great fire, tall as a full-grown man and a dozen paces wide, with the spider-like shape of a stair and a platform directly above it. Gold, bright as the eye of the sun in the darkness.

Yes, gold. That as much as anything else pointed out the identity of these people to Bakura. Gold was sacred to the Pharaoh's people, a symbol of the Sun God whose children they were, of the day and of the Light. The Kuru Erunans held silver in much the same esteem, the ore of the Moon Goddess, their Mother, being thieves and of the night and Darkness.

And suddenly, Bakura understood. Their plan unfolded before him in the light of the torches.

The Pharaoh's soldiers had driven the people of Kuru Eruna like fish into a net - the net of their bright brethren, soldiers waiting in the night like a pack of wolves, to ensnare the people as they fled beyond the village lights. One by one, Bakura's people were brought to their knees by the ones they hated most. One by one, the nation of Kuru Eruna fell. But they were not prey, no.

They were a sacrifice.

The pool of molten gold shimmered. And suddenly, the richness of the gold seemed tainted with its true intent and purpose.

There was a stirring among those gathered in the circle of light. The soldiers had left, and the priests had formed a ring around the pool of gold.

And up the stairs over that pool, two priests half-carried, half-dragged the first offering.

It was covered in blood, mutilated almost beyond recognition. Its hands had been cut off, its eyes gouged out. But even caked with gore, the man's strong form was unmistakable.

Bakura started forward - he recognized the bloody thing as his uncle. His mother's brother, who had talked with him and made him laugh, and helped raise him from an infant.

The priests and the bloody thing were at the brink of the platform now, on the brink of the shimmering abyss. And the bloody stumps of the man's arms rose up and shook, as if to fend away death - but there was nothing else, for then the priests threw him over the edge, into the boiling gold.

No more than a ripple, and the gold swallowed him up as if he had never been. Bakura choked on his scream.

And he was only the first.

The rest followed, dragged up by the priests. Men, women, and little children - ninety-nine living beings, killed in a single night by this single act.

Bakura knew that they were all alive when they were cast into that vat of boiling gold. And he could only watch, helpless, as his people, his life, all the world he knew…was lost to him forever.

Tears flowed down Bakura's cheeks, mingling with the blood of the God's mark on his face, salting his wounds.

With some sense beyond the five, he seemed to hear their screaming, see their spirits struggling against this force that consumed them. And they would never be free of it.

"Yes, child, you are right. Though it grieves us both, you are right."

Bakura turned his tear-stained face to the God of the Dead, now only a vague suggestion of form and line against the darkness, no more than a ghost here. The dark wells of his eyes were filled with a deep, inhuman sadness as He looked upon this procession of death.

"Have you come for my peoples' souls?" Bakura asked scathingly, tears still streaming down his face.

"No," the Death God said, not looking away from the sacrifice. "That's Anubis's job. Usually I never leave my dark domain, though for you I make an exception. Besides, there are no souls here to take. Look."

Bakura looked.

The presentation of the sacrifice was over. The ring of dark-robed priests was chanting now, calling upon some force that Bakura could not imagine, but that made the blood in his veins tingle and the hairs on his arms stand straight up.

The priests chanted. A wind rose up, and things shifted in the night. Sight blurred. Senses faded. The universe itself was trembling.

Without warning, the chant ended and the dark priests fell to silence. Together, they raised their arms in a unified gesture of summoning. There was a sudden light like a star dying or being born, and Bakura was knocked cleanly off his feet by this explosion of power.

He lifted himself up, opened eyes he hadn't even realized he'd closed…and he saw them before him.

Where the pool of gold had been, there was a stone with the shape of a God carved into it, like a sarcophagus for the immortal - carved with the face of the first Pharaoh, Narmer the King of Kings, from whom a civilization sprung.

And in grooves in this stone, this sarcophagus of a God, there were nestled things the like of which Bakura had never seen.

Seven things, seven Items. Made of gold, the stone of the life-giving sun itself, cast in the shape of the things that the Gods Themselves held in their hands.

The Necklace of Auset was there, the jewel of the Lady; the Rod-knife of Set, that He had used against His brother; the Scales of Ma'at, balances of good and evil; the Ring of Nebt-het, symbol of the cycle of light and darkness; the Ankh of Khons, who fashioned mankind on His potter's wheel and breathed into them life; and finally the Puzzle, the Puzzle that was testament to the Highest Power, the shards of the Divine that form the puzzle of the universe and ourselves.

Fashioned in the shape of the symbols of the Gods, Their power was channeled down into these things. And the ones who wielded them would wield the power of Gods.

Yet there was something more. Beneath the glow of firelight on stone, something older and more terrifying even than the Gods lurked.

These things were newly made, but the powers that lived in them were old before the world was formed. Summoned through death, form given to the formless, a whole new dimension of power to the things that created the Gods before the Gods. Even Bakura dared not speak of these things.

It was for this, for this that his people were slaughtered like sheep upon the altar of the Shadows: To bring down the Gods, and to open the gates of the world to destruction.

"They are all dead," he whispered in a voice full of horror, his eyes wide as the cruelty of reality sunk in. "They have all been killed, and imprisoned in these objects. They were my life, my family and my friends…and now they are all dead."

The blood of the child's wounds and the tears of his grief mingled, and fell like a sacrifice to the earth.

The Death God turned to him, the mourning in His eyes as much for Bakura as it was for his people. "Yes," He said quietly. "Their bodies will never be given proper burial, their minds will never be laid to rest, and their souls will never travel the Star Road of those gone before them into the Tuat.

"They are imprisoned in these things, and they are fully aware of it. Their agony, their rage infuses the ore. Their suffering and sacrifice give it power. Their life, and finally, their death - for there is no power greater than that, the fate of all things.

"Besides, it is what these things were created for. War, magic, death. And above all, **_power_**."

"Who would do this?" Bakura hissed, his voice shaking.

The King of the Dead looked back at the idol and the Items. "All this that you see can be traced back to a single man. The soldiers may have done the killing, and the priests the presentation of the sacrifice, but they did it on the explicit orders of one person - the Pharaoh of Khemet."

"Why would he do this?" Bakura cried, the trails of blood and tears on his face. "Why would anyone?"

The Death King turned to him with bleak eyes. "Because he could.

"Bakura, this is why I told you the story of Atlantis. Both so that you might know the legend of your own origin when there is none left to tell it to you…and so that you will realize what men can do when blinded by greed and lust for power.

"The Pharaoh may be the son of Heru, the God upon the earth and the glory of Ra, but the screaming of his victims echoes even in the Halls of Heaven, and their suffering chokes the Angels. He has tampered with powers no one should touch, and through cruelty and deceit opened the world to a horrific force. If you are to take your revenge out on someone, let it be on him."

Even through the tears that filled them, Bakura's eyes blazed. "Tell me what I must do."

The Death God looked with strange sorrow at nothing the boy could see. And He said, "Perhaps…perhaps if you gather all these objects together, and if you return them to dust as from dust they came, scattering them to the winds…perhaps then the souls of your people will be free.

"But I cannot tell you what to do with your life, for I am the Lord of the Dead, ad when next I see you, you will not be alive."

His ghostly eyes met Bakura's dark, wet ones, and He laid a hand on the boy's head, a final blessing of the darkest power.

And then He was gone.

Anu remained. Bakura had almost forgotten about him, silent all this time. The phantom jackal padded closer to him._ My master, what will you have be done?_

The grief-stricken softness of the boy's features hardened, and his eyes filled with something darker than tears.

Perhaps it would have gone otherwise, had it happened to another. Different people will react in different ways.

Some will fall, some will fight. Some will derive a lifetime of compassion from such a thing, others one of hatred. Some will destroy everything in their paths, and some will destroy themselves. Some will live in that moment forever, and some will banish it from the light of day. Some will beat their souls against the impossible, and some will shrink back. Some will blame the world or society or fate or the Gods, and some will blame themselves.

And one would commit himself utterly - mind, body, and soul - to the freedom of a lost people and the annihilation of those who had destroyed them.

"I will make of myself the instrument of the Gods' revenge, and destroy these blasphemous things," Bakura said. "Scatter them to the wind, and return my people to the earth from which they came.

"For among us, vengeance is not a matter of hot blood - it is a duty. An eye for an eye, a life for a life. There must be a balance. My people must be avenged. And even should I die, I could not rest until their killers are all dead. Besides, I could not endure myself if I let my peoples' murderers run free. Grief and guilt would eat my soul. In this, at least, I can make something of that grief - even if it is utter destruction."

Darkness and rage gathered around Bakura like a shroud. "The Pharaoh destroyed my people. And so I will make a new people, a people of the broken and the lost, whose lives he destroyed as he did mine.

"And we will destroy _him_."

Anu's eyes widened. _My Gods, how can a child think like this?_

Bakura looked long and slow at Anu. "I am no child, not any longer. No child should ever have seen what I have seen this night."

What Anu saw in his eyes, the boy never knew and never asked. But Anu shivered and looked away, and did not question him again.

"In any case, I cannot take them now." Bakura gestured to the Items, around which the dark priests gleefully danced. "There are many things to be done. Come, Anu."

Bakura turned his back on this array of death, and began to walk. But he paused for a moment, and whispered on the edge of hearing to the night and the desert wind. "No one will weep for them or for me. It is a cruel fate to be betrayed - and crueler still, to be forgotten.

"But I have wept for them. And I will never weep again as I have for them; I will never love again as I loved them. As they died, so has something died in me tonight."

With that, Bakura walked out of the life he had lived. And he never looked back.

Dawn found a pale-haired, dark-skinned boy wandering alone in the desert. And a pack of thieves found him also, a fresh kill.

There are some who live for death, and death alone. And so it was with these, big, brutal, and war-battered men whose only joy lay in the suffering of others. Long years of death had destroyed whatever humanity was left in them. They had nothing to gain from killing Bakura but the experience of killing - yet that alone was enough.

The one Bakura presumed to be the leader (the biggest, toughest, most brutal of the bunch) drew from his belt a scimitar longer than Bakura's whole body. "Look!" he roared with laughter. "A little kitten wandering in a den of lions!"

The tiny boy looked at the giant men with boredom and slight contempt. "Fools," he muttered under his breath as he turned his back on them.

The leader frowned. He leaped forward, and prodded Bakura in the small of his back with his scimitar. "Fool I might be, but I'll be the death of you! You, and your father, and your mother -"

At the word 'mother,' Bakura whirled to face them, demon fire in his eyes.

Though it was morning, a darkness seemed to descend and grow around the boy - and there seemed to be faces pressing against this darkness, skulls in the desolation. And though it was silent and still, a wind lifted, carrying upon it the sound of a thousand whispering voices.

Bakura extended his left arm to his side, and closed his open hand. An the watching thieves saw that in it was a knife, a strange knife with patterns in its blade like darkness.

"Will you kill me now?" Bakura asked mockingly. "I think not. I think you will not know until it is too late which one of us is the killer, which of us the killed…and which killing."

The bandits milled nervously; the shuffling of feet and the clicking of weapons. _There should be a drumming charge and the cries of war_. Bakura smirked. It is intoxicating to bring fear into strong men.

But the boy paused for a moment, looking at these ragged killers…and saw in them the key to his destiny.

There are accepted classes in this world; the class of servants, the class of farmers, the class of artisans and masons and scribes, the class of priests, all serving under the great light of the Pharaoh himself.

But there are shadows to this light - the shadow classes of thieves, tomb robbers, brigands, dark magi, prostitutes, assassins; the hunters of the night. The shadow classes that existed outside (yet because of) the light, and sough always to destroy it.

Yet they could win. With the right one to lead them, the shadow people could destroy the classes of the light once and for all.

And who better to lead them than the Prince of Thieves himself? Bakura's smirk grew. After all, his people had been thieves, and thieves were his people still.

"What do you want of us?" the leader of the brigands asked, obviously less sure of himself than he had been before.

Bakura smiled broadly. "I want the loyalty of all of you. You will be my people, and I will be your King. And together we will be the instrument of the Pharaoh's downfall, and we will usher in a new age - one in which all people are free, a utopia. For it is true," Bakura smile filled with darkness; "That the truest utopia is utter chaos."

__

To be continued…

- 'Narmer' is the name of the king who united the Upper and Lower Kingdoms at around 3100 bc., thus founding Egypt. He was regarded as a mythical figure and something of a God to those who came after him

- The whole scene of the Kuru Erunan sacrifice is shown in the manga, and the Japanese TV show. I probably fucked it up a little…but dat's okay .;;

- I use the ancient Egyptian names of the Gods in this fic (except for Anubis, because His Egyptian name is Anpu, and that just reminded me too much of the guy from the Simpsons). Nebt-het is Nephthys, Isis' sister; Auset is Isis; Heru is Horus, and I think the rest are pretty self-explanatory

- Yes, for all those who've caught it, I did make Bakura left handed. There are a lot of superstitions surrounding left-handed people; They're possessed by the devil, have supernatural powers, etc. And since I'm reading the Da Vinci Code (GO MARY MAGDALENE! W00T!), I also made him left-handed because of his ties to the sacred feminine. His mother, for instance. She's very close to the Gods, and he's very close to her. Bakura is, in essence, a little mama's boy XP

Any other questions, email me or post them in a review. I'll get back to you as soon as possible.

Speaking of reviews…

REVIEW! Or I'll…I'll…I'll make Thief King part of the Pharaoh's harem!

Thief King: . You wouldn't

Oh, you just better damn well hope they review. Or else.


	6. The Mirror of the Soul

Wow, did I take long enough? .O Sorry about this, guys. A four-month gap between chapters. Eh-heh. But Ryou appears in this one! :D :D :D Yaaaaaay! I've been waiting for this as long as you guys have.

Well, anyway, here ya go…

CHAPTER FIVE

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The Mirror of the Soul

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Ten years later…

Bakura stood on a small hill in the grey light before dawn. The fierce child had grown into a powerful man, and the Prince of Thieves had become a King.

Yes, he had grown; he was so much taller now, and stronger, muscles rippling under his dark skin like some great cat. He had been perfected by the cruelties of his life, stripped of all weakness.

But the scars were still there upon his face, marking him with the Death God's blessing. They did not mar his strange beauty; they only enhanced it. His smile, too, was the same, and his dark eyes like portals into another world.

It was not that he was particularly big or strong; he didn't need to be. Power flowed in his veins, and darkness radiated from him like heat from a fire. His people whispered about it when they thought he wasn't listening: _The aura of another world surrounds him. Demons themselves pay him homage, and the elemental spirits dance in his footsteps. The heir and the embodiment of darkness._

His people, his thieves. They waited just behind the hill, watching for his signal.

He could see them in his mind's eye. Ah, ye Gods, they were a wild crew, the flotsam and jetsam of society; battle-scarred, bristling with weapons, killers in body and soul. Their appearance bore witness to their ferocity, like pariah dogs that lived on their wits and strength.

Bakura smiled darkly. Yes, these were his people and he was their king.

He was robed as such, a killer, a king. Adorned with talismans, gold and jeweled; armed with a sword thrust through a sash at the waist; dressed in the robe of a true ruler, red with trim of white. The color of evil and the color of death. Fitting, certainly, for one such as him.

But there was no time for musings, poetic nothings. The song of destruction and the lust for battle howled through his veins, and those of his companions. They looked to him, and he nodded. Together, they set off at a run over the desert.

Surer, more silent than horses, they raced like a pack of wolves through the graying light, wordless and without sound. And shadows, far deeper than the morning darkness, followed them.

They knew what they must do, and they reveled in it. They had done it a hundred times before, and the steps of the dance were engraved on body and soul.

Like a mirage over the desert, the temple and its little town appeared. Bakura grinned. He'd waited for this.

He often targeted temples. The Pharaoh, his greatest enemy, was by virtue of his very position High Priest and guardian of every temple in the land. So Bakura liked to destroy them. The little towns that tend to spring up next to temples he destroyed too, an added bonus.

But before it even came into full view, Bakura knew something was wrong.

This early in the morning, the town should still be dark, and the gates of the wall around it - they all had walls these days - open to admit the shepherds with their flocks. But instead, lights burned brightly in every dwelling and every gate was sealed shut.

Bakura cursed. They knew he was coming.

He signaled to his band to circle the town and look for another way in, then sped off alone in the direction of the temple. They could fortify the town, but a place of worship wasn't so easily defended.

A wall surrounded the temple, too, curving around the structure till Bakura couldn't see it anymore. But this one was unguarded, and there were steps carved up the wall, so that one might ascend easily to the presence of divinity, up to the pillars that lined the top.

As he climbed up and came near to them, he could see these columned depicted the Goddess Auset at various stages of Her life, surrounded by the hieroglyphics of Her magic spells.

Bakura's eyes widened as he realized it. Fourteen columns, on the great circle of the wall. For the fourteen full moons of the year.

The very temple itself was in the shape of a circle - a full moon. A testament to the Lady, who is light in the darkness and whose symbol is the moon.

_The Khemetians don't make their temples like this_, he thought. Finding all lust for battle had left him. He shivered and looked at one of the columns, with its carving of the Lady.

Power like a chill wind caressed him. But the air was warm, and there was no wind.

He heard a woman's laughter somewhere.

_No_, he thought. _But then, it was not the Khemetians who made this place_.

Standing here, he could see the full temple compound was nestled inside the wall. To the right and left, there were buildings where the priests and priestesses - respectively - ate, slept, worked, and lived. To the far end, there was the sanctuary, a small but beautifully made and painted. And before him, there was paradise.

A garden, where bloomed every kind of plant, tree, fruit, and flower he had ever heard of, and then some. They had been planted by a genius hand, and the place was a marvel of art and beauty. Footpaths wound through the flora, leading to the priests' or priestesses' quarters, the sanctuary, or other locations.

Everything, without exception, was utterly deserted.

Bakura continued forward, as through drawn by magic. He went down another flight of stair on the wall (ascending on one side, descending on the other; for the ascending and descending rites of the Lady, he assumed. Ye Gods, everything in this place was charged with divine symbolism), continuing on to a path in the garden.

He walked through it, overcome, and feeling like the serpent in this Eden. But that did not dim his awe, and he found he could not harm a single stone of this place; the utter peace of it brought him to his knees.

He followed the path, and eventually it took him to the sanctuary, or the steps leading up to the sanctuary. Whatever had made this place, Bakura thought, it must have been step-happy. There were a _damn_ lot of steps here.

But these thoughts were quickly dispelled, because there was someone on the steps where no one had been before. A young boy. (Actually, he looked only a few years younger than Bakura, perhaps fifteen or sixteen, but so full of love and compassion that Bakura found himself calling him, 'the boy.') He seemed such a part of this place, so filled with the beauty and serenity, that Bakura did not at first realize he looked just like him.

His hair was the same color as Bakura's, ghostly white, uncut and unbound, falling freely around his face and shoulders. His skin, though, was fairer than Bakura's, fairer than that of most people who lived in this sun-baked land. Fair as the first glow of dawn.

His eyes were of brown. Beautiful eyes, as full of light as Bakura's were full of darkness. Eyes that held all the lights of the universe, worlds within worlds that Bakura would never know. Innocent without being naïve, wise without being cynical; nothing could hide from those eyes, that looked on a cruel world with infinite compassion.

But the lamp is only a vessel for what lies within it, and Bakura knew that however strange this boy may look - however much like himself - his body was only a fragile lamp for the light that dwelt within.

It seemed he had known him before. From the dreams he did not remember, the lives he had forgotten. His reflection, who held him and was held, loved him and was loved, two halves of one circle - ever-changing, ever-lasting, its only assurance in its own eternal self.

The boy spoke, and his voice was clear and sweet. "Take off your shoes, for you walk on hallowed ground."

Strange, to the King of Thieves, to be spoken to thus. Stranger still, that he found himself obeying.

The boy smiled at him, sweet as the sun rising. "I'm afraid you will find nothing here, Thief Lord. Everyone is gathered in the town, armed, and the gates are barred against you."

Bakura managed a soft, "_How?_"

The boy was still smiling. "She told me, in a dream."

And Bakura knew that this 'She' of whom he spoke was no mortal woman.

The boy came down the stairs, smoothly, swiftly, until he stood face to face with Bakura, each of them looking into his own reflection, the mirror of the soul. Without fear, the child reached up and stroked the harsh scars on Bakura's face. "You have been marked by dead," he said softly.

The breath caught in Bakura's throat. "Most don't realize."

The boy gazed at him. "No, but then they are only human."

Bakura realized he was afraid. He, who feared nothing, feared this young boy. The child knew a magic against which Bakura was helpless. He awakened things that had lain long dead in the Thief Lord, a tenderness that made him tremble to the core of his being. And Bakura knew only one way to deal with what he feared - by destroying it.

Darkness whispered once again at his ear, and the gentleness woken in him turned its face away, fading as if it had never been.

There was a great crash as Bakura's band stormed the temple and swarmed into the garden. On Bakura's orders, they took the boy hostage.

Beautiful and utterly indifferent, the sun rose, light shining on innocent and guilty alike.

888

They took the boy with them when they left across the desert, sole prize of a fruitless raid, who came almost willingly. His hands were bound behind his back, yet he walked so peacefully between heaven and earth, and even as a captive seemed the freest of them all.

The faces of his captors passed before him like figures from a nightmare: a monster of a man covered in scars; a beautiful woman with a fierce face, and an empty socket where her left eyes should be; a quick dark man with the pale smile of a demon. None spoke to him, though, and none looked him in the eye. And he understood he was a dead man walking.

They walked for a long, long time in the desert in the heat of the day. Though no one seemed to be following them, they could not risk being tracked and thus often had to wait as Bakura or one of the others erased their prints from the sand. They split up and backtracked so many times that the boy became well and truly lost, and couldn't have found his way back to the temple if he tried. Not that it really mattered.

The sun was low in the sky by the time they reached Bakura's destination. The thieves slipped away, one by one. None of them wanted to be here when the sun went down.

At first glance, it didn't look like much. A little hollow in the sun-baked earth and gravel of the desert. It was very rocky here, and boulders of all sizes littered the area.

But there was a cleared space in the center. Here there was a great standing stone, rising from the earth but not of it, and upon this stone were carved the tiny letters of a lost language.

The boy understood, and shuddered.

There are some places that are sacred by virtue of their very being; places where the veil between the worlds wears thin, where there is no division between the past and future, the living and the dead.

There are many such places across the face of the world. The standing stones on Salisbury Plane, the house of the Oracle at Delphi, the great Temple in Judea…and this place. This, though, was sacred not to the light, as the others were - but to the darkness.

Before the Khemetians had conquered the Valley of the Nile, before even Bakura's people had come here, there were those who watched the waters rise and fall, who lived off the bounty of the Nile and paid its Gods their tribute in blood.

They gave the greatest offering they knew: a human life. Yes, they had sacrificed here, and the screams and blood of the victims tainted this place even now.

The boy looked to the sky and saw that the sun was resting on the horizon, an eye of light above the rim of the world. Sunset, that transition time. The shimmer of the Gods is easier to perceive at dusk and dawn, and in the mix of shadow and light, the gateway to eternity opens.

All the other thieves had left. Bakura and the boy were alone now, alone with the dead and the desert silence. Bakura dragged him over to the standing stone and forced him to his knees.

The shadows took them. That was the only way the boy knew to describe it. The growing darkness surrounded them, fell over them like a blanket, though no earthly darkness was ever this bleak. Nameless things flickered at the corners of the child's eyes, and the wind seemed to carry whispers of death and the fate that awaited him.

But he could see, and he saw in the Thief King's hands a knife where no knife had been before. He smiled, and as the boy watched, Bakura took the knife and opened a deep gash in the palm of his own hand. Bakura had always loved pain, even his own. He cupped his hands, and the blood filled them as water from a spring fills a sacred pool.

The little things the boy saw flickering grew ecstatic, and flocked to drink of Bakura's blood.

In ages after, from such would come the legends of vampires and blood-sucking demons, but in truth everything dead hungers for blood. Blood is life.

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So he commands the spirits of the dead, the little souls, and binds them to him with his own blood, the boy thought. _The souls of his victims_.

"Yes and no," Bakura replied, reading his thoughts effortlessly. "Some of them were my victims…and some of them were never human. This is but the appetizer before the feast."

They drained the blood from Bakura's palms, and began dancing and flickering around the two, frantic with anticipation. _Yes_, the child thought. _They will devour my body so that the Thief Lord can take my soul_.

Bakura kneeled so that he was face to face with the boy. "Long ago," he whispered, caressing the shadow-knife with love. "Set, the Evil God, killed his brother Ausar and cut his body into fourteen pieces with a knife both sacred and profane."

The boy's eyes widened. "Even the wisest of the priests do not know from whence came a blade that could kill a God, or what became of it."

"Well," Bakura said, still smiling and holding the knife. "You know, now."

With that, he sealed his mouth over the boy's and drove the knife into the child's heart.

Pain exploded in Bakura's own body as steel entered his own chest. He opened his mouth to scream, but it was filled with blood. He tore his lips away from the other's, looked at his face…and saw himself.

They had switched places, their souls switched bodies. The boy's soul looked out from Bakura's body, and Bakura looked out from the boy's. The spirit of one in the body of the other, each the mirror of the soul.

Then vision took them like a riptide, and they thought no more.

Children were playing in the garden; their laughter rose with the dust in the golden light of the afternoon sun. A woman, laughing also, was bringing them in for prayers. The white-haired boy was leading them, singing, and Bakura realized it was his past that he saw, the boy's life in the Temple of Auset.

Offspring of priests and priestesses, as well as children abandoned on the temple steps, are often taken in as wards of the sanctuary. Bakura understood that the boy must be one of these.

Whatever he was, he had been happy. He had walked his first steps here, spoken his first words, had grown up from an infant among those dedicated to the Sacred, and though he was never really one of them, he had been happy here. Raised in perfect innocence in the shadow of a Goddess, surrounded by a kind of grace Bakura could not even imagine.

Bakura felt his own history being drawn from him, his life, in all its darkness: his childhood in Kuru Eruna, its destruction, the war he waged against the Pharaoh. All his secrets were laid bare before this simple boy.

Light and darkness, their histories and their souls blending like a rising canticle until neither could tell where one ended and the other began.

They spiraled into the past they shared, to other lives where their two had been one. Beautiful stories with tragic endings, always, love destroyed by hatred and reborn to begin it all again.

Always.

888

Bakura opened his eyes, in his own body again, lying on the ground. The visions, the little spirits, the shadow-knife were all gone. Darkness surrounded him, but it was only the deep indigo of an earthly night. Judging from the positions of the stars, dawn was not far off.

He rolled over and saw that the boy was awake also, and looking at him. They were, Bakura slowly realized, both completely unharmed.

"Ryou," Bakura said, which he knew was the boy's name. He tasted it on his tongue like strange wine. He had never heard a name like that before, and indeed, he never would again. It was a word of power in a language that would not be spoken for two thousand years.

"Bakura," the boy - Ryou - replied, and the Thief King stiffened with horror.

To Bakura's people, one's name is what they are. It is a word of power over your soul; if someone knows your name, they can use it to command you as they choose.

Very, very few, living or dead, had knowledge of Bakura's name. But this boy, this child…he knew.

The child knew his name. Bakura couldn't kill him now even if he wanted to.

His band of thieves were there, peering at him and looking very puzzled. Bakura sighed; whatever else he was, he was a King. Still shaking, he rose to his feet and said with a confidence he did not feel: "You are to take this boy to The Camp, and treat him as a guest of honor. You will give him food, drink, anything he desires. But keep him under watch at all times, and do not let him out of the camp. I shall be in my own tent."

No one had ever come back alive from the sacrifice, least of all as a guest of honor. Bakura expected to hear mutterings and whispers colored with wild speculation.

But instead there was only silence and a hundred pairs of questioning eyes pressing against him as he turned and walked out into the night. Utter silence.

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To be continued…

****

Notes:

- Bakura is eighteen in this, if you didn't realize, and Ryou is about fifteen.

- I hope I described the Temple well enough for you guys x.x It's not based on any historical model of any Egyptian temple, as far as I know, but that's not the point.

- You'll find out more about Bakura's people in the next chapter. I like them. They're pretty damn cool :D

- The standing stones on Salisbury Plane refer to Stonehenge; The Oracle at Delphi refers to the prophetess of Apollo in ancient Greece; the Temple in Judea was the one that Solomon built. They're all very spiffy.

- In many cultures, sunset and sunrise tend to signal strange happenings. I'm not aware that the Egyptians themselves thought this, but I wanted to work the legend in here.

- The Egyptians believed that if you destroyed a dead person's body, their soul would wander the earth without any way to rest. Bakura's little spirits devour the body of his victims when they're dying, and Bakura yoinks their soul. Crazy klepto Bakura.

- Sorry if I confused anyone in the part where Bakura and Ryou switched bodies. :::sweatdrop:::

- The bond between Bakura and Ryou goes back many lifetimes, and I needed to work that in here (I stuck it in during the visions). Their love is, however, cursed. Mweh.

Only Bakura would show his affection for a person by trying to kill him, wouldn't he? XD Oh Bakura.

Don't worry, if you're dissatisfied with the interaction between them in this chapter, the next chapter will be much more juicy. ASS PIRATES! BOOTY BANDITS!

Bakura: I hate you so much.

Yes, but you love Ryou .

A massive thank you to everyone who reviewed last chapter. I love you all. Bakura better thank you, too; it's because of you that he isn't the Pharaoh's ho.

Bakura: … :::flees:::


	7. Hail to the Thief

Yay, chapter six. Go me. Anyway, a guide to names might be an order:

Tesemet: Egyptian for "Greyhound."

Keh: Egyptian for "Bull."

Nebenkeku: Egyptian for "Lord of Darkness."

Sekhmet: Goddess of war and killing stuff.

Gwydion: Old Welsh for…something. I really don't know.

Take a deep breath and jump into…

CHAPTER SIX

__

Hail to the Thief

The sky was beginning to lighten by the time Ryou, with his self-proclaimed "honor guard," reached the outskirts of the thieves' camp.

Now that hew as past the danger of being sacrificed upon the altar of darkness, they were willing and even eager to speak to him. One, the dark man with the quick grin, chatted incessantly as they walked along.

"We are mostly freed slaves. You see, when the Nebenkeku captures a town or a village, he doesn't harm the slaves. He'll release them, and give them the choice of dying with their masters, taking their chances with free life, or joining his band. Unsurprisingly, a lot of them join him. He treats us well, and gives us a fair share of loot. There's very little malcontentment and almost no mutiny, but he seems to know when there is. And Lady Sekhmet help the ones who try to kill him. But mostly it's good times. He, the Nebenkeku, likes slaves. You see, his mother was a slave."

_The Nebenkeku_, Ryou mused. _'Lord of Darkness.'_ He assumed he was speaking about Bakura. Of course they would not know his name.

"Is that how you came to be here?" Ryou asked the dark man.

The man flashed his quick white grin, wry wit sparkling in his black eyes. "No, the Nebenkeku found me on the streets of Waset, making a living by stealing bread. My name's Iniko, and don't ask me what it means 'cause -"

The fair-skinned, one-eyes woman gave him a frank look. Her yellow hair was cut short as a man's, and she wore boiled leather armor with a sword at her waist. All in all, a very intimidating figure. "Iniko, he doesn't want to hear you blabber and neither do the rest of us. So do us all a favor and _shut up_."

He gave her an innocent, lamb-eyed look. "Oh, but Tesemet, my darling…."

"Tesemet?" Ryou asked, puzzling at the name.

"Yes," she said courteously to him. "My former master gave me the name, and yes, it was meant to be a mockery. He treated his dogs better than he treated me.

"As for _you_," she fixed Iniko with her one-eyed gaze. "I'm no one's darling, least of all yours, and I'd advise you not to call me so again."

A familiar sight saved Iniko the humiliation of an answer.

They had been climbing what appeared to be a steep hill somewhere in the wasteland. Having reached the top, Ryou realized there was a small bowl-like valley nestled in it, and this valley held the thieves' camp.

Cookfires burned in the early morning gloom, horses whinnied, hounds barked; tanners prepared leather armor, smiths forged or repaired various weaponry, and children and dogs raced yelling through the maze of tents.

"Ah," Iniko spread his arms melodramatically. "Home sweet home."

Ryou wondered that he had not seen or heard this place earlier, but then he saw something flicker in the corner of his eyes, and felt the chill that accompanies the presence of the dead.

So the living were guarded by the dead, and this place was veiled to all those who did not know how to find it. Bakura was, after all, a master of spirits.

Two identical boy-children, very young, came running up to greet the warriors. They stopped short at the sight of Ryou. They gave him identical appraising looks, and one of them, asked, in his sweet, clear child's voice, "Sir, why are you wearing a dress?"

He was clad in the plain white shift of an acolyte of the Goddess. He looked down at himself and blushed.

Iniko answered for him. "Kalil, Keydi, it's not a dress it's a robe."

"It is so a dress," the other one - Keydi - answered.

"Is not!" Iniko snapped.

"Is so."

"Is not."

"Is so."

"Is no- hey, respect your elders!"

Kalil made a few suggestions as to what Iniko really was, using words that made Ryou blush.

"Oh, that's it, you're _done_, you little…" Iniko lunged at the two.

Keydi was carrying a short staff. He swung it at Iniko's head, and his aim was unerring.

The two boys took off down the hill. Iniko would have followed, but a massive figure detached itself from from the rest pf the band and delicately picked Iniko up by the back of his tunic. Iniko was a toy compared to him. It was the grizzled, simple-minded giant.

"Keh hates it when we fight among ourselves," Tesemet said to Ryou. She looked completely unperturbed. "Anyway, you're hungry, aren't you? Come on, let's take you to Yenuveh's.

888

Bakura's tent was set on the outskirts of the camp, near the walls of the valley; he preferred to be well removed from the general chaos of his people. The ten of the King of Thieves looked much like any other, small and earthy-colored. Quite average, until one noticed the chill and the aura of darkness that lay over it like a shroud.

Bakura pushed back the entry flap and entered its darkness. Not natural dark, this, but that was no surprise. The Shadows seemed to follow him as carrion birds follow and ravening army.

"Anu." The name was a command.

The shape of a jackal appeared in the shadows. One moment it was not there; the next it was. Tragic golden eyes pierced the darkness. _Yes?_

"Anu, tell me - what am I going to do about this boy? He will destroy me."

The dead, being not of this world, are better able to objectively view it. Yet even Anu was quiet for a long time.

_No, he will not destroy you, and this is the reason for your terror. But to kill him would be to kill yourself. I can tell you no more than that_.

As suddenly as he had come, Anu was gone. And Bakura was left to ponder the meaning of his words, and puzzle over this strange boy who had turned his life upside down.

888

Yevuneh, as it turned out, was an elderly Hebrew woman and a former kitchen slave. Her husband had died in slavery, her children had marched off with the rest of the Hebrew people during the recent Exodus, and she remained to help with the cooking for Bakura and his band.

And, Ryou thought as he nibbled one of her honey cakes, what fine cooking it was.

There being no permanent furniture in an impermanent thieves' dwelling, he was seated on the ground, wedged between the giant Keh and Tesemet's young son. Yes, Tesemet a son. Ryou had been surprised, too, when a tiny, scruffy boy flung himself on the warrior as soon at their group entered the camp.

She had laughed with pure joy, and scooped him up in her arms. The little child smiled at her, and she smiled back. Ryou hadn't seen her smile before. "Gwydion," she said softly. "My son."

"Gwydion?" Ryou blinked. "What a strange name."

Tesemet didn't look away from her son's grinning face. "My mother was a slave from the Isles of Mist to the far, far north. She was used for breeding, and she was sold when I was six years old. But before that, when I was very young, she would tell me the legends of her homeland, and one of my favorites was about a hero named Gwydion. Those stories are all that I have left of her."

"I am…sorry for you, Tesemet," Ryou said. Gwydion caught sight of him, and flashed a dazzling smile in his direction. "Who is his father?"

Tesemet froze like a rabbit in a snare. Her smile vanished, and when she turned to meet his eyes there was only darkness there. "After my mother was taken from me, I was sold into a brothel. I was, as I have said, six years old. And there I was sold again and again, night after night. When I tried to run away, my master put out my eye. He said he would have fully blinded me, but he wanted me to see the faces of the men leering down at me night after night. So no, I don't know who Gwydion's father is, and frankly I prefer it that way."

Her single eye blazed with green flame. Her features were ravaged by war and sorrow, but there was the shadow of great beauty there.

"Oh Aset…" Ryou whispered.

"You'd best leave Her out of this," Tesemet said. "She's never cared much about my life before. Anyway, after the Nebenkeku freed me, I found my former master. And I killed him with my own hands." She turned back to Gwydion, who was looking very worried.

At the moment, in Yevuneh's tent, Gwydion was nibbling a biscuit and staring at Ryou. They were all listening to Iniko, who held a poultice to the side of his staff-whacked head, and in between angry rants would tell Ryou the stories of the people in the camp.

Currently he was speaking about Keh, who was also nibbling a biscuit, and gazing at Iniko with mild amusement in his eyes.

"…You see, his parents were field slaves, and they were 'mated' by their masters. That means they were bred like horses or oxen for their strength. Only I think Keh here could take down any beast of plow or field. He's mostly impervious to bodily pain, which is why he has so many scars - his masts had to really whip him hard to get him to behave. But he's gentle by nature, and can't stand to see the people he adores fighting. He can't speak, though; he's a bit simple. Had the strength of an ox but the mind of a child." Iniko beamed at him. With the earnestness of one who does not know how to lie, Keh smiled back.

And with he swiftness of one who cannot long concentrate on anything, Iniko was shouting at Yevuneh, "Hey, don't I get one of those biscuits too?"

She was tending a pot boiling over a pit of coals. She didn't even look up at him. "No," she said flatly.

The smile vanished from his face, and he muttered a single word. A very nasty word.

At this, chaos erupted.

Yevuneh was stirring the pot with a wooden spoon. A second later, the spoon was flying end over end through the air. It struck Iniko square in the face, engendering a lot of yelling. Yevuneh yelled back, cursing him soundly in what might have been three languages. The spoon was followed by the boiling pot, a laying hen (still alive and very much indignant), fruits, vegetables, and assorted cutlery. To prevent further injury (both to the man and to the tent), Keh was forced to drag Iniko out by the scruff of his neck.

With a little sigh, Ryou followed.

888

They'd settled down again near the center of the camp. Iniko was holding a second poultice to the spoon-shaped bruise that was beginning to purple even through his dark skin. He was ranting in earnest now.

"Always I've been a good man, always loyal, and what do I get for it? ABUSE BY A KITCHEN MAID…!"

Ryou, of course, ignored him. His attention was focused more on a group of warriors making their way across the camp. As they drew closer, Ryou realized they were all women.

Iniko followed his gaze. "Ah yes, Tesemet's warriors. Scary, scary people."

"But…they're all -"

Iniko clapped a hand over the boy's mouth. Don't say it. Not if you value your manhood, don't. Those who say that women are the gentler sex have never met them." Iniko removed his hand and continued.

"They and their kind are more common than one might think. A lot of warlords keep fighting women in their parties - they just don't like to admit it.

"If you think about it, it makes sense. A woman can get places a man can't - no man can get into the bedchamber of his enemy, for example, at least not without a lot of confusion and uproar. Women's clothing lends itself to disguise. It's not sexism when they say women are more dangerous than men; another man won't castrate you in your sleep. And Sekhmet protectress, they're fierce. Would you like to face Tesemet or one of her women in combat? I know I wouldn't. I think even the Nebenkeku is a little afraid of them."

Though he already knew, Ryou asked, "Iniko, why do you call him the Nebenkeku?"

For the first time since Ryou had met him, Iniko looked afraid, the shadow of dread creeping over his features. Quietly, he whispered, "He do not like to speak of it. Why do you think he is called the Robber of the Tombs? He takes not only the gold and jewels there, but also the souls of the sleeping dead. The Lord of Darkness, he reigns over the dead and the living alike, and even the spirits bend their will to him."

"Why, Iniko, you flatter me."

They both turned. There, behind them, was the King of Thieves himself.

Being dark of skin, Iniko could not blanch. Instead, he turned the color of old dust. In a flash, he was gone.

Ryou did not move. A stranger to fear, he smiled up at Bakura, and said, "You have made a little Kuru Eruna here, my lord."

A chill ran through Bakura upon hearing the name of his dead village, now surely no more than dust beneath the sands. But he hid it well. He hid many things well. "I am the King of Thieves, and this is my court."

Ryou looked at him curiously, and tilted his head to the side. "What are you trying to accomplish here, Bakura?"

Bakura looked at him soberly. He would insult neither the boy nor himself by telling a lie. "I vowed long ago to destroy the Millennium Items and the ones who bear them. They are a blasphemy. I shall kill the Pharaoh, and I shall usher in a new age."

"The reigning Pharaoh is not the same one who set the dogs of war upon Kuru Eruna," Ryou replied.

Bakura's expression darkened. "No. But do you think Kuru Eruna was all full grown thieves? There were children there, too, and it was not they who robbed Pharaoh's tombs. I know, I was one of them. But that did not stop him from killing them all.

"Their only crime was to be of the blood of the condemned. The Pharaoh has inherited the blood of his murder father, and it is this blood that I will shed upon him as vengeance."

Ryou met his gaze coolly. "It is still not right."

"Not right?" Bakura gave the mockery of a laugh. "You have been among these people, you have heard their stories. Was it right, what the Pharaoh's people did to them? I do nothing more than reply to his savagery. What we are is what they have made us."

Ryou's gaze burned through all his subterfuge. "There is nothing that justifies the destruction of any life."

Bakura opened his mouth to reply. But at that moment there was a puff of feathers and a strangled squawk as a slinger shot down a desert bird.

An answering cry came from the camp, a cry of the most profound sorrow Bakura had ever heard, a sound that made every man, woman, and child in the camp listen and shiver. A sound, Bakura realized, that came from right next to him.

In the stillness, Ryou crossed the camp. He knelt in the dust, lifted the dead bird in his hands, and pressed it to his heart.

He closed his eyes. Back and forth he rocked in the stillness, back and forth. When he stopped and his eyes opened, he raised his hands…and the bird flew out of them, alive.

Bakura gasped. Everyone can bring death, but only a very, very few can bring life.

The others, however, did not look impressed and most of them were simply annoyed. Ryou felt suddenly embarrassed. "It…I couldn't…" he stammered.

"Child," Iniko said, unaccustomed seriousness in his voice. "Why do you think these people joined the Nebenkeku's revolt? Because they had nothing more to lose. We don't want riches; we just want to survive. We are slaves, lowest of the low, the toys of any who has money enough to purchase us. We are the innocent, and always it is the innocent who suffer. We leave mercy to those who have the power and leisure to choose whether or not they will kill. For us, there is only this."

Tesemet was there. "Iniko," she said. "You talk too much. You have an attention span shorter than a Libyan pygmy, and most likely you will have completely forgotten about this by tomorrow. We have dried food stores, and Yevuneh would appreciate your help."

Predictably, Iniko forgot his anger at Ryou in favor of his anger at Yevuneh. "She wants my help! She threw a _chicken_ at me, Tesemet…"

Dinner - a soup of indiscernible substance - passed without further event, more filled with the wolfing down of food than with conversation.

The sun was lowering in the sky by the time they all finished. Tesemet set down her plate, and looked around at those gathered. "The boy will need a place to sleep. Blankets, as always, are scarce, but-"

A voice interrupted her, and Bakura recognized it as his own. "There is no need. My bed is large enough. He may stay with me for the night."

Again, where Bakura expected banal whisperings, there was only silence. They retires shortly after that.

888

A soon as they were alone in the tent, Bakura whirled on Ryou. "The others may believe it, but I am not such a fool. You are no child of the temple. Where did you come from?"

Bakura turned his back as Ryou stripped for bed. As was the custom with most in Khemet, thy slept naked.

It was only when they were both under the linens of Bakura's bed (Bakura himself refusing with a King's discipline to acknowledge the feelings this boy's nakedness inspired in him), that Ryou answered. "I came the night of the storm. The great storm that came with cold winds and dark clouds, choking the sun and turning the day as black as night. The skies opened, and a river fell from heaven. Yet in this darkness, strange lights lanced the sky, and the Gods themselves roared in the thunder.

"But the people did not remember the year by that storm; they remembered it instead by the stranger who came at twilight, bearing a strange pale child in his arms - me.

"He was clad in rags, and he looked like he had been running a long time. He was nondescript, the people of the temple told me after, except for his eyes - they were the eyes of one who has seen spirits, and the ghosts of the dead.

"He came to them sodden and weary, begging them only to take his child and raise him as one of their own. The High Priestess took me in her arms, and gave him her word. He nodded, and went back into the night. They never saw him again.

"This is only what the priests and priestesses of the temple told me. I remember nothing; I wasn't a year old when my father left me. Everyone at the temple liked me, though, because they said I had beautiful eyes and I never cried. They called me Atet, which means Water From Heaven, until I turned one and a half, pointed at myself and said _Ryou_. For that is my true name."

Ryou turned his head to look at Bakura. "Before, when you tried to kill me, why did you…kiss me?"

Bakura felt a shock run through his body. He turned away from Ryou. "To capture your soul as it left your dying body. I do the same with all those I sacrifice."

Neither of them said anything after that. Both wanted to, but neither dared.

888

Bakura woke, once, late in the night. At some point in the innocence of sleep, Ryou had thrown an arm around Bakura.

A shaft of moonlight cascaded from a tear in the fabric of the tent, and gilded Ryou's features. Like Endymion in the fields, like one of the Angels descended to earth. Something not of this world - something more. He took Bakura's breath away.

Such beauty, such innocence…in the reflection of Bakura himself. Bakura reached out a hand to caress the boy's cheek.

_My innocence has been returned to me, in the guise of a boy so like and yet so different from myself_. And he felt the long darkness of his life fading before this boy's light.

Ryou's lips were parted slightly. With a tenderness strange and wonderful to him, a peace he had never known, Bakura leaned down and kissed him.

Peace followed him down into the well of his dreams.

__

To be continued…

…W00t. Boy love. And it'll probably be another four months until the next chapter, because I have original stories to finish.


	8. A Great Man\'s Fall

I'm sorry I took so long, guys, I really am :sweat drop: A lot of stuff has been going on lately. Yeah, that's my excuse.

CHAPTER SEVEN

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A Great Man's Fall

There are some kings who were born, not made; they were kings before time began, and they will be kings long after it is gone. Pharaoh Aten of Khemet was one of these. A God among men, embodiment of the vitality of his land; warrior, priest, and King.

And yet, as the High Priest Seteh entered with his burden of news, Aten's proud head lowered and his eyes closed like a wounded animal's. "So," he said hoarsely. "The Thief King had struck at the sacred heart of our land, raiding the Temple of Auset itself."

"Are my thoughts so very obvious?" Seteh smiled slightly. "The Thief Lord is growing ever more bold, but at least no lasting damage was done."

"No lasting damage!" Aten's head jerked up, and he fixed the priest with a withering glare. "A boy sworn to the Goddess was stolen from the Temple, and you say there is no lasting damage! Every village and town in the Two Lands lives in terror of another such attack, and you say there is no lasting damage!" The Pharaoh's head lowered again. "As if it is not enough," he whispered. "As if it is not enough that the shadow-beasts ravage the land, that the harvests are suffering, that foreign invasions threatens our borders, this wolf must prey on the most vulnerable of my flock! And make no mistake, he will destroy them as surely as famine or a ravening army." He turned to the Priest. "Seteh, there is no way we can kill him?"

Something close to fear flickered across the Priest's usually expressionless mien. "No! He is a powerful necromancer; he might be more dangerous dead than alive."

Aten whispered a curse.

"However," Seteh continued, his smile growing; "What one cannot kill, one can cage. If you will listen to me, Majesty, I shall tell you my plan…."

888

To everyone's complete and utter bewilderment, Ryou showed no desire to return to the temple.

"There is nothing left for me there," he said when they asked him why. "I do not need them anymore, nor do they need me. Yes, I love them - I will always love them - but they are my past and you are my future."

"It is a hard life here," Tesemet said. "You are no warrior with a vengeance. Why do you wish to stay?"

"I have my reasons," Ryou replied simply. No one noticed that his eyes strayed to Bakura as he said this.

So he stayed, falling into the strange peace of the rhythms of camp life. Until the hawk came.

It swooped down out of the cloudless blue and landed at Bakura's feet. A tiny rolled-up piece of paper was tied to its leg, which it promptly thrust at him. The Thief King blinked.

The bird eyed him with its cold jewel-like eyes, squawked irritably and thrust its leg forward again. Delicately, Bakura untied the message, and the bird, as if summoned by an unseen force or simply wary of the stones Khalil and Keydi were gathering, took flight with a rustle of feathers. "A royal bird," Iniko muttered. Several of the thieves made the ancient sign for protection against evil.

Ryou was summoned to read it, being the only one who could. He recited it quietly to Bakura, until they reached the signature at the end.

The boy's eyes widened. "'From the Priest Seteh, Prince of the Royal Family, cousin to His Majesty Pharaoh Aten,'" he read, loud enough for everyone to hear.

Bakura did not react. To a stranger, his face would have shown no emotion, but those who knew him well saw the shadows come over his eyes. He turned and headed to his tent, saying he needed to think.

Ryou opened his mouth to call out to him, then thought better of it.

888

At sunset, Bakura called an assembly.

"I have received an offer of the kind a man receives only once in his life - a chance at the Pharaoh's life, and amnesty if I succeed." He paused for emphasis. "I mean to take it."

At once, debate erupted like wildfire among those gathered. War cries mingled with the mutters of the incredulous and fearful. "Do you believe this man is telling the truth?" Tesemet asked gravely, and Bakura replied, "I do not believe he would lie."

Yet one voice rose above all others.

"My lord!" Ryou pushed his way to the front of the crowd, and fixed Bakura with a fierce look. "I am going with you. I would not let you descend alone into the den of your enemies."

Bakura blinked. He had planned on going by himself; his vengeance was his own, and he would have no one else die for it. Yet even from where he stood, Bakura could see Ryou trembling, and he began to understand the desperation and courage it had taken the boy to say this.

And he knew, also, that wherever he went or would go in life, through adversity and triumph, sorrow and joy, this boy would be with him. It is a strange thing, for one who has lived so much of his life alone.

The crowd was utterly silent. Everyone waited on Bakura's answer.

He sighed. "All right," he said. "All right."

888

They left either very late at night or very early in the morning, depending on one's perspective; in those shadowy hours when the stars are far away and cold, and the mist hangs low over the desert, and even the wind seems to be sleeping.

Even so, the entire camp turned our to see Bakura and Ryou off. Kahlil and Keydi pelted them with flower petals under the pretext of a blessing; Yevuneh fussed over them anxiously; and Iniko led a whole groggy company in a war hymn for their honor.

"You'd think we were a pair of newlyweds," Bakura muttered, and Ryou laughed.

But as they continued on, the others fell back, one by one, until the two of them stood alone before the staggering darkness of the desert night.

888

They reached their destination just as the sky was beginning to turn gray. Ryou pulled his hood up to hide his hair and face, disguised in servant's robes, and continued with Bakura on to the royal palace above the sleeping capital city.

They reached the appointed place at the appointed time; the eastern servants' entrance just as the sun peered up over the horizon. A man was waiting for them there, a youth dressed in the clothes of a commoner, with honey-yellow hair and gentle brown eyes, of Hellene blood, if Bakura was not mistaken. Whoever he was, he was not the Priest Seteh.

The servant arched a brow at Ryou, but wisely said nothing. Wordlessly, he turned and led them into the depths of the building, through a maze of twisting corridors, until they came to a massive set of doors at the end of a great hall.

When the doors opened, Bakura's first thought was, _Ye Gods, he thinks he is Pharaoh already_.

Incense fires burned, sending their light and fragrant smoke dancing along wall etchings beautifully rendered and limned in gold. Carvings depicting the Priest making offers to the Gods - and the Gods accepting. Yet even the gold and the leaping flame could not conceal the inherent darkness of this place, the shadows that lurked in the corners, watching and waiting.

"So you have come."

Bakura's head snapped up. Across the room, upon a throne on a stone dais, the Priest smiled.

The High Priest Seteh was clad in the dark blue of his office, soft brown hair sneaking out from under his high crown. His icy blue eyes bored into Bakura and Ryou as they approached.

No servants appeared to offer stools to them. Clearly, they were meant to petition the Priest like common peasants. Bakura felt a twinge of irritation, but what could one do?

The Thief King and the Priest eyed each other warily as fighting dogs. Neither trusted a man that was so like himself.

Seteh cocked his head. "I could kill you now," he mused, gazing at Bakura, ignoring Ryou's presence entirely. "Who would stop me? No one would ever know."

Bakura roared with laughter. He was not intimidated, not with Ryou by his side; the boy's presence was oddly reassuring. Bakura felt there was nothing that he could not do.

"Tactless, aren't you?" Bakura grinned. "This is no way for a king to greet another king."

For a moment there was utter silence. Then Seteh said, "Such sincerity. I would never have guessed a killer and a thief to have such virtue," and he too began to laugh.

Bakura relaxed. He sensed that some undefined test had been passed, some barrier overcome. "I couldn't think of a good enough lie," he said. "However, I did not come here on the offer of witty banter."

"Ah yes," Seteh leaned forward, his pale eyes glittering. "As you may well understand, I, as the Pharaoh's advisor and next-of-kin, can get places that you cannot. And you, the King of Thieves, can do things cannot. This is my plan…"

When he had finished, he smirked, saying, "It's ingenious, don't you agree? It serves the interests of us both, and, in the unfortunate instance that one of us is caught, implicates neither."

Bakura touched a finger to his lips in thought. "What drives you to do this, Priest?" he finally asked. "One can tell a great deal about a person by what drives them."

Seteh gave a Sphinx-like smile, the coldness in his eyes never abating. "I would not expect you to understand the games of royalty. My motives are my own, suffice it to say."

But the darkness in the corners of the room seemed to take on a shape, the shape of a demon and a man. Bakura shivered at the sudden cold that pervaded the room, herald of evil. And at last, he understood.

"It is not simply power that you want, is it, Priest?" Bakura said quietly; "But vengeance. And this vengeance is not even your own."

Seteh's eyes widened, and the shape in the darkness began to sway. _Yes this darkness in your blood, this shadow in your soul_, Bakura thought. _This is your destiny and this is your curse; it will follow you from life to life, and into eternity. Your life does not belong to you anymore, because it is ruled by this, your darkness_.

Ryou, who had been silent all this time, quietly said, "He is in hell, and he doesn't even know it."

There was nothing, really, to say after that. Bakura and Ryou left. But just before they went out the massive door, the Thief Lord turned and murmured, "Heru's scion and Set's priest. Truly, the Gods have marked your body and soul as a battlefield." And then they were gone.

888

"Tell me, Seteh, did it work?"

"Yes. He will come, Majesty. He would not say so, but I know that he will come. Is everything else in order?"

"Naturally."

"Good. Then tomorrow it will be over at last."

There was a pause. Then: "No. No, it is not yet over. It has only just begun."

888

On a hill overlooking the lights of Uast and the Palace, Bakura and Ryou settled in for the night. After a brief, wordless supper of honey cakes in the twilight, they lay down to sleep, wrapped in their traveling robes.

Ryou had never slept in the open before, exposed and virtually alone. He shivered at the cold and the dark (they did not dare risk a fire), jumping at the myriad small noises of the desert night.

Finally, Bakura got up. He gathered the boy in his arms, and covered him with his cloak. Ryou sighed and snuggled happily into the warmth of Bakura's body.

He gazed up at the Thief King with beautiful, desperate eyes. You do not have to do this, you do not have to kill the Pharaoh," he said softly. "We could live this place, and never go back. We could spend our lives wandering, going wherever we desire. We could spend the rest of our lives like this, Bakura."

Yes, lives of beauty and peace, Bakura thought. The kind of life that accomplishes nothing. All he would have to do was give up the vengeance he had cherished for so much of his life. "No," Bakura said. "I have waited too long for this. Hatred has grown old and ugly with me. Tomorrow, I shall kill him."

Ryou pushed himself up so that he was facing Bakura. His pale hair and face glowed with reflected starlight. "Bakura!" he cried. "Do you not see what you are doing? A great man shall fall tomorrow. A great man is falling even now."

"Then let him fall, Ryou." Bakura turned away and lay back down. After a little while, he heard Ryou settle in also. So close, yet Bakura understood he could not touch him now. Silence descended, a silence crueler than any words ever spoken.

Bitterly, Bakura shut his eyes, ignorant of the trap snapping shut behind him.

888

"_Do you wish to kill the Pharaoh?_" Seteh had said. "_Do you remember the servants' way you came here by? When the morning star sets, enter it. There will be a series of red torches in brackets in the walls. Follow them, and you will come to this very chamber. At the moment the sun rises, they will open from within. Within there will be the Pharaoh, alone. I trust you know what to do from there._"

Light was filling the halls like water fills a cup. Bakura shivered with anticipation and predatory delight. Ah, ye Gods, he had waited so long for this.

He had left Ryou by the servants' gate: he refused to witness this, and Bakura would not make him. He had avoided meeting the boy's eyes as they parted, knowing all too well the sorrow and bitterness he would find there.

The doors were beginning to open. Adrenaline rushed through Bakura's veins like liquid fire, and his hand closed tight around the hilt of the shadow-knife.

The doors swung back. And there, as Seteh had said, there was the Pharaoh, with his royal silk robes and strange spiked-up hair. Bakura had never seen him in person before; all that he had time to think was that His Majesty was a very short man.

For there, too, were some two dozen armed men, their weapons pointed at Bakura. He could hear more filling the corridors behind him.

_A trap_, he thought, feeling the noose tightening around his throat. He remembered Ryou's last words to him - _A great man shall fall tomorrow_. And finally he understood. It was he, Bakura, who would fall.

Pharaoh Aten gave a small smile, almost tragic, and made a strange gesture toward the Thief. At once, Bakura felt the shadow and wind surround him, dragging him into the other world.

His last conscious thought was of Ryou. What would become of him? "_Ryou!"_ he screamed, and distantly he heard the boy answer him. And then there was only darkness….

__

To be continued…

****

Notes:

"Seteh" is the most accurate English translation of the name of the God of Darkness, so that's what I've used here. Besides, I like how it sounds. Seteh, Seteh, Seteh….

Hawks, FYI, are considered living symbols of the Horus (Heru), and by extension, the present Pharaoh. The hawk was able to find the camp because magic doesn't affect animals in the same way it affects humans (so Seteh and the Pharaoh couldn't find the camp themselves…I probably should have put this in the fic, but I wasn't sure how :sweat drop:)

The city of Uast is Memphis, the capital of Egypt at this point in time.

Those of you loyal to the Japanese version of the anime will recall that Seteh gets possessed by Zorc…or whatever his name is. So yeah, that's the darkness in the throne room.

Anything I forget? Well, probably, but just ask me in a review.

Also, I'll try to have the next chapter up a lot sooner, especially considering it's such a good one. The Bakura x Ryou romance really heats up.

I'd also like to say that I typed a lot of this up in the Harvard College Library. There were all these world scholars and brilliant students around me, and here I am, writing fan fiction XD XD XD

Review!


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